Jesse Lingard ‘looked like prat’ in controversial social media video but ‘made a mistake’, insists Man Utd legend Gary Neville

GARY NEVILLE has defended Man United star Jesse Lingard by describing his controversial social media post as a "mistake".

The England forward is facing a dressing-down at Old Trafford after a foul-mouthed video was uploaded to Snapchat from his holiday in Miami Beach.

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Lingard, 26, is in the States with team-mates Marcus Rashford, Ro-Shaun Williams and their friend Jamal Branker, who was filmed gyrating on a pillow.

Lingard claimed he didn't mean to upload the video but just save it, yet United legend Neville says the youngster looks "a bit of a prat".

As quoted by , Nev said:"In any business, in any football team, if the guardians in the dressing room, the ones who have the influence, are not setting the example, then you have a big problem and have to clear them out.

"Jesse Lingard doesn't drink a lot. Twenty years ago, somebody going on a holiday would have been bladdered for four weeks.

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"What's worse - a social media post where somebody's having a bit of a joke or getting bladdered for four weeks?

"You'd rather have your player being sober, probably training all day and having a joke with his mates.

"This is absolutely a lesser evil than we had 20 years ago when players would go off for five or six weeks and come back overweight, saying 'pre-season's for getting fit.'"

Neville believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's squad lacks characters who can act as role models to others.

He said: "When I was playing, you always had three groups - the guardians, the middle group and the younger ones.

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"Manchester United doesn't have the guardians now. Absolutely not, no. There are some good professionals - Juan Mata, for instance, Ander Herrera when he was there, and Scott McTominay - you can see he's a good lad and wants to play football.

"But I don't think they carry the influence in the dressing room to be able to dominate the culture and that's a real problem."

Solskjaer is expected to discuss the incident with Lingard before the squad reports back for pre-season duty on July 1.

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