[Leftback99]

Is it such of a surprise? United have conceded 20 less goals this season, are 3rd in the PL for clean sheets, are third for least xGA (only one goal in it between 1st & 3rd), have the most clean sheets in Europe across all competitions, he's the fifth highest rated CB in Europe on whoscored.com and as one of our Noggie posters informed us, he also made their PL team of the year drawn up by their panel of experts.

I don't know why people talk like he'd be easily replaceable with some cheaper option (who they can't name). Pretty much every team is looking for the same thing and there are very few about.

He's had a good season overall. Even the reliability of actually being available every week after years of rotation at centre back makes a big difference.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if he made more mistakes this season. He's 20 years old moving to a much more difficult league, while Maguire's 27 playing in the same league. He has the same deficiencies with more aerial dominance and genuine ball playing ability so is much better value, assuming he can adapt. That's not a small assumption but it's a much better deal than settling for a pretty good defender from my perspective.

You think that De Ligt has more aerial dominance? He scores a few more headers but he's not as dominant in his own box. His passing is better though I agree on that.

His wages and transfer fee were astronomical. Juve have the advantage of the high earner tax law in Italy but the reports said that he is the highest earning CB in the world. His transfer fee wasn't far off Maguire's either. For those number you'd expect a world class CB straight out of the packet.

 

[Sylar]

Hes had a really good season for us. I think individually he could do better, but our defence overall has been better with him in it.

Id like to see him get more goals from set pieces (especially since hes meeting them with his head). And would like to see him make a few less mistakes defensively (like diving in, being beaten easily). Not sure if that can happen but I think its a good season to push on from.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

Stats and stats (link)

1. 3420 minutes
Only Conor Coady (Wolves), George Baldock (Sheffield United), James Tarkowski (Burnley), Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool), Declan Rice (West Ham) and James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) matched Maguire's minutes in terms of outfield players.

2. 8408 yards
4th best player at 'progressive carrying distance'.

3. 193 aerials won
3rd best player at 'aerials won'.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Stats and stats (link)

1. 3420 minutes
Only Conor Coady (Wolves), George Baldock (Sheffield United), James Tarkowski (Burnley), Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool), Declan Rice (West Ham) and James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) matched Maguire's minutes in terms of outfield players.

2. 8408 yards
4th best player at 'progressive carrying distance'.

3. 193 aerials won
3rd best player at 'aerials won'.

He is very good at driving forward and is dominant in the air. Just hopefully tweaks his excessive dawdling on the ball going forward.

Interesting to see that Grealish tops that statistic of progressive carrying distance.

 

[reddev3]

The amount of goals he has saved from set pieces (his best asset) is obviously being overlooked as you can't tell when a ball is cleared whether or not it would have been converted but we did lose about four clean sheets on the run in last year from set pieces which contributed massively to our collapse. We have hardly conceded any like that this year which would reflect the clean sheet stat.

I honestly believe that run in and those goals were the reason Ole made him the undisputed number 1 target last summer.

 

[Number32]

He's clearly an upgrade of Smalling-Jones disastrous era. But, it's kind of funny some fans demand more from him regarding his 80M price tag was higher than Van Dijk.
"He's not world class", "We wasted 80m for a bang average CB", Tbf all of the moaning about him need to be stop right now. Then why can't we support him to be a World Class?

This negativity is worrying me, because the Journos will recite this to their non-sense story to put more pressure on Harry Maguire.
Imagine if we could land Sancho for 120m, then the fans demand a Ronaldo's performance from him week in week out.

 

[Womp]

He's clearly an upgrade of Smalling-Jones disastrous era. But, it's kind of funny some fans demand more from him regarding his 80M price tag was higher than Van Dijk.
"He's not world class", "We wasted 80m for a bang average CB", Tbf all of the moaning about him need to be stop right now. Then why can't we support him to be a World Class?

This negativity is worrying me, because the Journos will recite this to their non-sense story to put more pressure on Harry Maguire.
Imagine if we could land Sancho for 120m, then the fans demand a Ronaldo's performance from him week in week out.

Few things. The journos will write about our players regardless, we are the largest club in the sport, or at least in England. It generates clicks. So not criticising him on an online forum is nonsense, otherwise what is the point of the forum in the first place, if not for discussion? Secondly, how exactly do you 'support someone' to be world class? He very clearly has a specific ceiling, which he looks like he's hit. He's not a young, up and coming player. He's an established, senior professional. He won't ever be in that Van Dijk tier because simply put, he's not nearly as gifted a footballer as Van Djik. Has nothing to do with support.

He's not a bad player, but he will never live up to his price tag, which was at the time and still is, ridiculous.

 

[Number32]

Few things. The journos will write about our players regardless, we are the largest club in the sport, or at least in England. It generates clicks. So not criticising him on an online forum is nonsense, otherwise what is the point of the forum in the first place, if not for discussion? Secondly, how exactly do you 'support someone' to be world class? He very clearly has a specific ceiling, which he looks like he's hit. He's not a young, up and coming player. He's an established, senior professional. He won't ever be in that Van Dijk tier because simply put, he's not nearly as gifted a footballer as Van Djik. Has nothing to do with support.

He's not a bad player, but he will never live up to his price tag, which was at the time and still is, ridiculous.

By trusting him to carry on and forget about his price tag. I'm okay with the criticism of him in the last 4 games, but overall he has a very good season with us. The stats don't lie, he had been playing every games in PL, that's enough to live up to his price tag. The journos will only write about interesting story, they wouldn't touch Maguire if our fans are happy with him.

Van Dijk and Laporte are the only better CB than him in the league, and I remember when we laugh at Van Dijk's and Laporte's price tag either. Time will tell how valuable Maguire for us, he just had one full season here.

 

[OleBoiii]

Our second most important player. There, I said it.

 

[RedSky]

League Stats Only

29th April 2018 to 25th December 2019

Games: 60
Goals Conceded: 78
Clean Sheets: 11
1.3 Goals Conceded Per Game

26th December 2019 to Present Day

Games: 20
Goals Conceded: 14
Clean Sheets: 11
0.7 Goals Conceded Per Game

It's clear that our defense took a while to fix itself. Maguire/AWB came into a new team struggling to keep clean sheets, De Geas form has been patchy and Shaw had a fairly long term injury resulting in us chopping and changing our starting LB. But in the last 20 league games we've managed the same amount of clean sheets as it took the previous 60 and we've almost halved the goals conceded per game ratio. Our defense deserves credit for turning it around and Maguire to his credit has performed very well in his debut season.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Few things. The journos will write about our players regardless, we are the largest club in the sport, or at least in England. It generates clicks. So not criticising him on an online forum is nonsense, otherwise what is the point of the forum in the first place, if not for discussion? Secondly, how exactly do you 'support someone' to be world class? He very clearly has a specific ceiling, which he looks like he's hit. He's not a young, up and coming player. He's an established, senior professional. He won't ever be in that Van Dijk tier because simply put, he's not nearly as gifted a footballer as Van Djik. Has nothing to do with support.

He's not a bad player, but he will never live up to his price tag, which was at the time and still is, ridiculous.

Maguire has done very well this season in my view. Some improvement is needed but he's not as bad as what people mentioned. The guy would have played in XI for all 20 PL teams now. He's currently above Joe Gomez in England CB pecking order & Pep wanted him to replace Kompany.

He will never be a world class imo and isn't going to be in Van Dijk tier. But Gary Pallister wasn't a world class either and he's still a good centre back. Maguire has assets & ability that he can offer for our success.

Beside, nowdays there are not many world class centre back. So mentioning Van Dijk is unnecessary, transfer fees can be viewed in many ways. Van Dijk was bargain for his price while Maguire is what you have to pay if we want a good centre back. Bayern spent 70m on Lucas Hernandez while others who are less proven & average cost like 60m, that's how the market goes.

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

Do find it irritating how long he takes on the ball.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

You have to credit his durability

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

I genuinely feel much calmer with our back line when I see his presence

 

[Tony247]

He seriously needs to work on his headers. Otherwise strong presence.

 

[gajender]

Maguire may have limitations as a player despite that I am glad we actually bought him last summer he certainly has made a difference to our defence for sure , hopefully we bring in a Dm and new goalkeeper before changing his partner because that would bring greater improvement in defense rather than just replacing Lindelof.

 

[A-man]

He seriously needs to work on his headers. Otherwise strong presence.

Yes but we also need to start targeting other players on the corners. It’s a bit of a weakness that none of the starting forwards is strong in the air.

 

[Tony247]

Yes but we also need to start targeting other players on the corners. It’s a bit of a weakness that none of the starting forwards is strong in the air.

I agree.

 

[Verminator]

You can't understate availability either.
Harry has played 53 games, so far, this season.
Phil Jones has double that in the last 5 seasons. So Maguire plays 2.5 times more than Jones.
It doesn’t matter how good a player is, if he hardly plays. Not that Jones is that good anyway.

 

[Hammondo]

Not the standard of player you should have if you wanna try for the PL or the CL.

 

[AR87]

Not the standard of player you should have if you wanna try for the PL or the CL.

What's the standard then? Chelsea have won leagues with David Luiz starting at CB.

 

[jeepers]

First bit of a random YouTube highlight video of the LASK match was us defending a corner and Maguire doing absolutely nothing, then trying to pull the LASK player who hit the bar with his header.

He’s not good enough, but there are very few great defenders like VVD.

I do hope we are considering Kabak and not just going to let him go to Liverpool without driving up the price first.

 

[King Andow]

First bit of a random YouTube highlight video of the LASK match was us defending a corner and Maguire doing absolutely nothing, then trying to pull the LASK player who hit the bar with his header.

He’s not good enough, but there are very few great defenders like VVD.

I do hope we are considering Kabak and not just going to let him go to Liverpool without driving up the price first.

Had a quietly bad game, that play was ridiculous and he had other brainfarts. Good for him that he's not from Sweden.

 

[Hammondo]

What's the standard then? Chelsea have won leagues with David Luiz starting at CB.

David luiz when in an organised team was very good. When not he was bad. When he was good he is leagues better than Maguire.

Also the season he won the PL with Chelsea the competition was MUCH lower than it is now.

 

[AR87]

David luiz when in an organised team was very good. When not he was bad. When he was good he is leagues better than Maguire.

Also the season he won the PL with Chelsea the competition was MUCH lower than it is now.

He was never leagues better than Maguire.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

I like Maguire, but he got big weaknesses with his pace. He is a beast in the air defensivly though and good with the ball. Wish we can improve our set pieces so that he can score some more goals.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

I like Maguire, but he got big weaknesses with his pace. He is a beast in the air defensivly though and good with the ball. Wish we can improve our set pieces so that he can score some more goals.

He should score more goals. I think he’s easy to mark though from the opposition as we are so poor everywhere else throughout the team in the air. How many goals have Rashford, Martial and Greenwood scores with their head this season? It’s definitely less than 5.

Maguire is about our only threat from set pieces, so is marked out of it. Pogba can be useful in the air at times, otherwise it’s pathetic.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

He should score more goals. I think he’s easy to mark though from the opposition as we are so poor everywhere else throughout the team in the air. How many goals have Rashford, Martial and Greenwood scores with their head this season? It’s definitely less than 5.

Maguire is about our only threat from set pieces, so is marked out of it. Pogba can be useful in the air at times, otherwise it’s pathetic.

Matic, Lindelöf and Pogba should help him out though. Wan Bissaka you would hope to improve in the air too, but probably not.

 

[Cassidy]

Matic, Lindelöf and Pogba should help him out though. Wan Bissaka you would hope to improve in the air too, but probably not.

Pretty sure AWB will improve in the air over time. Its only his second full season and he didnt train as a defender at youth level

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Matic, Lindelöf and Pogba should help him out though. Wan Bissaka you would hope to improve in the air too, but probably not.

They’ve got height, but can’t remember a single one one of them ever scoring from a set piece.

It’s a big weakness we have. It’s been almost pointless us having a corner for the past 4/5 years (minus when Fellaini played).

 

[criticalanalysis]

You have to credit his durability

Agree but absolutely baffling decision to start and play him for the full game.

 

[A-man]

They’ve got height, but can’t remember a single one one of them ever scoring from a set piece.

It’s a big weakness we have. It’s been almost pointless us having a corner for the past 4/5 years (minus when Fellaini played).

Last time Lindelof scored from a setpiece was this season against Aston Villa. (Header corner)
See 1:34 (you can’t see it is a corner in this video but it was a short corner)



Last time Matić scored was a corner last season. Lindelof first headed the ball, but goalie saved and Matic scored on the rebound.
See 00:45

 

[Hammondo]

He was never leagues better than Maguire.

Definitely has been.

 

[3KDré]

Last time Lindelof scored from a setpiece was this season against Aston Villa. (Header corner)
See 1:34 (you can’t see it is a corner in this video but it was a short corner)



Last time Matić scored was a corner last season. Lindelof first headed the ball, but goalie saved and Matic scored on the rebound.
See 00:45

No, the last time Matic scored was a volley against City this year.
1 minute in

 

[A-man]

No, the last time Matic scored was a volley against City this year.
1 minute in

You’re right, totally forgot that. Even better!

 

[Yagami]

I thought he was brilliant. 7 aerials won, some Scholes-esque pings, clean sheet.

 

[A-man]

Poor first, good second half. Should dominate teams like Copenhagen better.

 

[AltiUn]

Seemed to win everything in the air tonight. I don't think any of our CBs struggled tonight, I thought most of our issues seemed to stem from the full backs and occasionally the midfield.

 

[Adnan]

He wins so much in the air that I fear if he's out for any period of time we'll become a very vulnerable team against the high ball, especially from set-pieces.