Maguire making a mockery of £80m price tag this season

Martin Macdonald

• 25 Oct 2021 11:41 BST
• 4 min read

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is now 1/5 odds-on favourite to be the next Premier League manager to face the sack.

The Red Devils are currently seventh in the Premier League and suffered one of their worst ever defeats on Sunday, losing 5-0 at home to arch rivals Liverpool.

At the moment, Man Utd have conceded 15 goals in the league - a record only worsened by Norwich, Newcastle, Burnley, Leeds and Watford.

Chelsea, the current leaders of the league, have conceded just three.

A major part of the reason for Man Utd's defensive frailty is the performances of club captain, Harry Maguire.

The England international remains the most expensive defender in history following his £80 million transfer from Leicester in the summer of 2019.

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Though that price tag is certainly not the fault of the player, it has indeed put pressure on him not only to succeed at Man Utd, but flourish, and lead.

Solskjaer clearly views him as a leader as he gave him the captaincy.

Unfortunately for Maguire, though he remains a competent defender, he always has a mistake in him and his career at the club has been peppered with high profile errors.

Following a 1-1 draw against Tottenham during lockdown in which Maguire failed to stop Steven Bergwijn from running through and scoring, pundit Roy Keane famously said afterwards:

"I am flabbergasted. Maguire and [David] de Gea, I wouldn't even let them on the bus after the match. Get a taxi back to Manchester!

"These are established international players we're talking about. We're all sitting here and I know we have to analyse the game. Analyse it until the cows come home. You do your job.

"I am staggered at Maguire, staggered at how an international player can just get done like this."

Unfortunately, Maguire continues to be done by players, be out-thought by players, and be bettered by players.

Recent performances from Maguire

In Man Utd's last two Premier League matches, no less than nine goals have been conceded, and Maguire really has been awful.

It was clear in the match against former club Leicester that he was nowhere near fit enough to be playing, and that is the fault of the manager.

However, Maguire's performance against the Foxes was fairly inexcusable all the same.

With Man Utd leading 1-0 through a Mason Greenwood strike, Maguire stood to the left of De Gea, waiting and waiting for a pass to arrive from the Spaniard, instead of going to meet the ball.

With him standing stationary, Kelechi Iheanacho couldn't believe his luck as he pounced to set up Youri Tielemans for the equaliser.

He had negative part to play in all four of Leicester's goals.

For Caglar Soyuncu's, he failed to clear his lines and played the Turk onside, for Jamie Vardy's he was indecisive about whether to come out and block, and for Patson Daka's he was caught on his heels as Leicester's new signing popped up to score at the back post.

Against Liverpool he was just as bad, setting the tone for a terrible afternoon by rashly rushing out of position for the opener, as the Reds easily opened up the game through the middle for Naby Keita to score.

For the second, scored by Diogo Jota, he clumsily ran into team-mate Luke Shaw, while he was nowhere near Mohamed Salah for any of his goals.

It is clear that Man Utd need Raphael Varane back, but should Maguire be the player to partner the Frenchman based on current form?