It is 10pm in a humid Hanoi, where FC Seoul have gone for warm-weather pre-season, and Jesse Lingard is talking about the need to get back into the Asian Champions League. “You want to play the Saudi teams,” he enthuses.
It’s a different life, and a new lease of life. Lingard says he feels “lively and bubbly”, which is how teammates generally describe him. It’s just, recently, that hasn’t been a description that always fitted. Certainly not when he was in tears while driving away from Manchester United for the last time. Certainly not when he felt “stifled” by the rigours of the modern game.
