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Jesse Lingard’s bitterly disappointing start to life in Korean football has seen a huge drop in social media followers.
The former United player made the controversial decision to sit out six months of the season after leaving Nottingham Forest last summer, rejecting a plethora of clubs in the Premier League and Championship.
Then the shocking news broke that the 31 year old had agreed a deal to sign for FC Seoul in the K-League in South Korea.
He spoke of his excitement on the move and a record home attendance came out to witness his home debut in the Korean capital.
However, Lingard suffered a debut from hell as he was booed onto the pitch by away fans, picked up a yellow card and his new side fell to a 2-0 defeat.
The England international has also been poor in subsequent games and faced some harsh words from his coach, Kim Gi-dong, who gave a stinging critique of Lingard’s performance, claiming the player didn’t fight or run during the game.
In fact, he was not even in the squad for FC Seoul’s game against Daegu earlier today.
The poor form has also begun to hit the player in off the field matters as well.
The Sun reports that he “has seen thousands of fans unfollow him as his South Korea nightmare continues”.
“His Instagram account lost 36,000 followers … between March 2 and April 2. This comes after a 59,191 increase in his first month after signing for FC Seoul” according to data obtained from KingCasinoBonus and SocialBlade.
This may not seem too important in the grand scheme of things but Lingard places great importance on his image and it has been speculated that the move to Korea was largely down to financial opportunity to build his brand in an economic powerhouse like Seoul.
The Englishman has 9.4 million followers on the social media platform and he has been criticised numerous times in the past for paying more attention to growing his “JLingz” brand than focusing on his performances on the pitch.
What is clear to see is that Lingard has little option but to work as hard as possible to turn around his start to life in Korea, whether that be for his sporting or business interests.
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