Manchester United vs PSV reaction: He's not the next George Best but Jesse Lingard will be good - if given time

Lingard was decent but should have scored in stalemate with PSV

(Getty Images)

The yearning for just a little of what George Best brought is as vast as ever at a time when, however implacably Manchester United have begun to climb again, there is an austerity about Old Trafford and its football. Amid the Best banners and the strains of Georgie Boy, ringing out on the tenth anniversary of his death, they came looking for a sign.

It is the incurable romance of the great club that always makes them do so. Two years back, they thought they’d found that spirit of adventure in Adnan Januzaj, sparkling, flourishing and destroying defenders from the ‘half turn’ position that coaches like to talk of on debut, 50 years after Best’s first start. “Gonna be like Tiger Woods,” Januzaj had said on his Facebook page, so delighted was he to receive some new kit from the sponsor they shared. He and his hero each had their troubles in the years that followed.

It was Jesse Lingard who held out the curiosity – a 22-year-old individual who had not been so much as a speck on Louis van Gaal’s season until he was selected for the squad for Everton in mid-October. He has been a mainstay ever since, his England senior call-up adding to what had been a 35-day dream cycle.

There are symmetries with Best for those who seek them, not least the capacity to worry half to death. Lingard was the one who physically shook with anxiety during the pre-match meal for the Youth Cup semi-final with Chelsea a few years ago. But the late, great No 7 did not know struggles like Lingard’s, with loan deals, a serious knee injury and the challenges of his own diminutive stature just a few of the potential roadblocks on the road to his first European start under the Old Trafford lights last night.

It was a statement of faith that he started at all, in a forward line which was a parade of all the young talents, and it took five minutes simply to get on the ball as the expensive young men who looked to have the ascendancy – Anthony Martial and Memphis – did their thing on the opposite left flank. But then his game began to materialise.

There’s not much swagger where Lingard is concerned – none of the stepovers which preceded Memphis’s early strike, comfortably saved – and that is why it can be easy to overlook him. “People look for intricate things but with Jesse it was simple,” Mike Glennie, United’s development centre coordinator and the man who scouted Lingard once said of him. “He affected the game and he could clearly play.” So the pass which seemed to have been played behind Martial was actually cued up sweetly for Bastian Schweinsteiger to strike, comfortably saved. And though Martial miscued the return pass of an exchange between them, Lingard found the dexterity to propel it forward into territory down United’s right, where the Frenchman often flourishes.

Lingard, it was, who sent the first threatening ball at pace down United’s right for Matteo Darmian to deliver the cross that would have brought peril if United had been clear-headed enough to position Martial at the spear of the attack. Of course, it takes more to write you name in Old Trafford lights than the clever feet and smart invention to assist others. What we saw in Best, of course, was the power to shape a game. He’d be damnable to some of those players he danced around. “You’re too old,” he’d tell a few.

The moments came when Lingard might have signed his name across this match. And then they went. The square pass, rolled into his path just beyond the 20-minute mark, brought the first, when Rooney saw him moving into the penalty area. Lingard’s left foot seemed to have cushioned it but the right became tangled up in the effort, taking the ball out in front of him and out of control. Lingard’s hands went to his head. Opportunities were sparse. He knew the potential significance of that moment.

The realisation grew as United struggled to build any structure in the match and were on the back foot, rocked by Dutch counter-attacking stealth that took another fine night from Chris Smalling to repel. And it screamed in his face when a second chance was spurned. Ashley Young, providing in the course of ten minutes what Memphis had offered in his 55 on the field, turned to cut back a deflected cross. It provided an opportunity which would have been the stuff of Lingard’s dreams across the course of years he has been building to this. He snatched at his half volley and sent it soaring into the Stretford End.

Manchester United fans hold a tribute for George Best (Getty Images)

Players like this need time. Another of Lingard’s coaches, Rene Meulensteen, tells of the how a United youth side, with Lingard in it, lost 9-2 at Leeds on one occasion, leaving parents in uproar. “Look at it in a year’s time,” he told them. Twelve months later, the same side beat the same opposition 10-3. Van Gaal does not have time on his side. European qualification is by no means assured when United make a nervous trip to Wolfsburg in two weeks. But though Lingard will not be the next Best, there were compensations. This was another night when the value of persisting with him was unmistakable.