West Ham captain and recently appointed drummer of West Ham’s band has revealed the story in the lead up to Jesse Lingard pulling off his first ‘pied piper’ celebration for the Hammers.
Speaking to talkSPORT the England international said: ‘We were in training on Friday and playing a game called ‘the D’, where the keeper plays the ball out to the D on the edge of the box and you’ve got two touches before trying to score,’
‘Pablo [Fornals] kept scoring and obviously Jesse was there, and Pablo kept doing the celebration Jesse has done in the past [his piper dance] and everybody was having a bit of a laugh and banter.
‘Before the game yesterday Pablo was like, “right, if we score today Jesse you do that, I’ll be on the guitar”, and I said I wanted to be on the drums! Literally it was just made up before the game, we just had a little giggle about it, and luckily enough Jesse scored and it call came off.’
Lingard has really hit the ground running and Rice said that having a ‘top, top player’ like the Manchester United loanee has been the difference since he came in.
Lingard made a January transfer to West Ham on a six month loan and the United loanee did not disappoint as he bagged himself two goals on his debut against Aston Villa.
The former England international had not started a Premier League match for over a year and after his blistering debut J-Lingz is loving football again.
It is understood that Olé Gunnar Solskjaer wanted to keep the England international at Old Trafford as a back-up should he need Lingard’s services if suspensions or injuries become an issue.
Solskjaer reluctantly agreed to let Lingard leave on loan though as the out of favour midfielder attempts to rekindle some form and hopefully fight for a place on Gareth Southgate’s Euro 2020 squad.
Lingard has made only three appearances for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side this season, the most recent coming in the FA Cup third round victory over Watford this month. He has yet to record a single minute in the league.