JESSE LINGARD has revealed Louis Van Gaal has given his players the licence to thrill again in a bid to put the X-factor back into Manchester United’s performances.
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| Jesse Lingard celebrates scoring for Manchester United in the 3-0 win over Stoke |
United followed up a convincing FA Cup win at Derby by producing their best home performance of the season against Stoke City.
A pacy, positive attacking display was highlighted by three well-worked and finished goals and was in stark contrast to many of their tedious displays at Old Trafford this season.
Lingard says the transformation is down to Van Gaal taking the tactical shackles off his players.
After breaking United’s embarrassing first half home scoring duck that had stretched back to September, the England Under-21 star said: “Now we are playing with that freedom and we’ve got a lot of energy in the team.
“We’re mixing up the positions and entertaining the crowd. We have to do that. But it's that freedom that we have, it's a weight off our shoulders and we can just play football now.
“It think it was our best performance of the season. We attacked and defended really well.
"We started very brightly, and as soon as we got the first goal, we were confident of getting a second and third. We needed to score goals, attack and entertain the crowd really. When we do that, we make the game easy for ourselves, so I think we should carry that on now.”
United had been booed off in their previous home game - the dismal 1-0 defeat to Southampton when they managed only one attempt on goal – and Lingard said his 14th minute strike was vital to prevent impatient fans from growing restless again.
He added: “Getting that early goal is massive; it gets the weight off the shoulders of the players and manager, it settled the nerves, settled the crowd and allowed us to push on for more goals.
“To get the early goal killed the game off. W ehad gone a long time without scoring in the first half at home - I think it was against Wolfsburg [on September 30] - so to get the first goal was great.”
Prior to the win over Stoke, United had managed only 12 goals in their previous 11 home Premier League games and Lingard admits it’s been tough coping with the unprecedented levels of criticism from supporters about the team’s style of play.
“It has been difficult, but most of us have shown great character to get through the tough stages,” he said. “We have to concentrate on the game. We can't let the fans influence how we play.
"We are on the pitch. We have to play the game as we see it at the time, we showed great character to do that in the last game. We were unfortunate not to get the result against Southampton but we bounced back against Derby and Stoke.”
The developing partnership between Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney is crucial to United’s hopes of continuing their transformation, according to Lingard.
French youngster Martial scored his ninth of the season from Rooney's pass then returned the compliment by providing the pin-point cross for the United skipper to continue his New Year hot-streak with the third against Stoke to make it seven in seven games in 2016.
That took the United skipper’s tally to 14 for the season and 244 overall for United - just five short of equalling Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time club record.
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| Louis van Gaal during the 3-0 win at Old Trafford |
"If we keep feeding the ball to Anthony Martial, he can make things happen,” said Lingard.
“We knew from his goal on his debut against Liverpool what he could bring to the team - that pace, that power and he’s got a great goal in him.
“Our second goal was some goal. It started at the back and built up to the front - I thought it was a brilliant counter-attacking move.
“And Wayne is always going to score goals, and he leads the team by example. Seven goals in seven matches is a great record and hopefully now he can get eight in eight.”
With only five points separating United from third-placed Tottenham and fouth-placed Arsenal, Lingard is refusing to write off United’s top four hopes and says there confidence is high for Sunday's visit to Stamford Bridge.
He said: "We’ve seen other sides drop points again and it shows that anything can happen in this league. We need to take it game by game and as long as we do that it will put us in a good position at the end of the season.
“The main focus is to start games well - if we do that we won’t go wrong doing that. We’re just enjoying our football at the moment and hopefully we can continue the run by getting a win at Chelsea on Sunday.”
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