Jesse Lingard one step away from returning to West Ham

Jesse Lingard appears set to possibly rejoin West Ham in the coming days. The former England international is currently a free agent after departing Nottingham Forest in June. Lingard previously signed a one-year deal with Forest last year but could not manage to provide a positive impact on the club.

Nevertheless, the midfielder is playing for West Ham in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Thursday. Mail Sport claims that the 30-year-old playmaker will feature for the Hammers in their friendly with Ipswich. This would indicate that manager David Moyes is willing to offer Lingard a new contract.

Jesse Lingard has a positive history with West Ham

The former Manchester United star previously played for Moyes during the second half of the 2020/21 campaign. Despite only playing 16 Premier League matches with the Hammers, Lingard scored an impressive nine goals for the club. The midfielder’s positive play helped guide the Hammers to sixth in the table, securing a Europa League place.

Moyes previously rejected move for playmaker

However, Moyes did previously deny making a move for his former midfielder. Although Lingard has been training with the Hammers, the manager claimed that the player was just gaining fitness. “He’s in training to see if we can get him back fit and get him in decent condition,” Moyes told reporters in mid-August.

“He’ll be back here next week as well. There’s no news on that as far as short-term deals or anything else. We’re working on him. All players tend to need four or five weeks preseason and Jesse’s no different from anybody else.”

Nevertheless, assuming Moyes likes what he has been seeing from Lingard, a potential deal could be struck. West Ham is currently fourth in the Premier League table at the moment. The Hammers have not lost a top-flight match so far, winning three of their first four fixtures.

The aforementioned news outlet also claims that fellow Premier League side Wolves are also interested in Lingard as well.

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