I thought the agenda from the commentary team against Maguire yesterday was so clear and obvious it bordered on a disgrace.
Robbie Savage blamed Maguire for the goal. I think we all accept a number of players could have done a tiny little bit more, as with any goal, Maguire included, but it was just a great delivery and a great blindside run. After the game, Ralf Rangnick called the goal 'nearly impossible to defend', so I'll take Ralf's view over Robbie Savage's, thanks.
Several United players probably had their worst ever games, in terms of ball retention. Bruno and Pogba hardly found a pass all game and lost the ball in dangerous areas multiple times. Fred, well....Fred is just Fred. Even Varane lost the ball a couple of times in dangerous areas. Yet when Maguire is given a difficult pass by Shaw deep in our own half under pressure, his left-footed clearance, which goes 30-yards and is intercepted on the halfway line, is criticised by Savage who remarks 'given away by Maguire, he has been sloppy in possession today. Absolute bollocks.
Fred mis-controls a pass from Maguire and is lucky to get a free-kick. Savage criticises Maguire. No mention of Fred's (usual) terrible touch or lack of ability to shield the ball under pressure. Nope, it's all Maguire's fault for passing it to him too hard. Imagine Roy Keane or Paul Scholes turning to Vidic after mis-controlling a pass and saying 'next time pass it softer please'. Laughable. Absolutely laughable. In fact, Keane used to famously berate teammates who didn't fire the ball into each other, because good players should be able to deal with it.
After the game, Paul Scholes blamed Marcus Rashford's poor form on Maguire. 'Marcus needs someone to tell him on the pitch, keep it simple, it comes down to leadership, we have talked about lack of leadership at United, Harry Maguire as captain, doesn't really do it'. Brilliant. Now we know then, if a player performs badly, it's Maguire's fault for not telling them not to.
The problem with this is that then when you browse RedCafe later, you see the numpties have been influenced subliminally and they're out en-masse talking about Maguire being 'sloppy in possession', 'at fault for the first goal' and 'not a leader'. All absolute rubbish, as usual.
The agenda is clear. Maguire starts every game on a 5 in the World of football punditry. If he's average, it's a 5. If any other player is average, it's a 6 or 7. Maguire has to be really good to be described as 'OK', in fact, he needs to be basically foot-perfect.
I actually thought Maguire was one of our best players last night, amongst a series of poor individual performances. Yet you wouldn't know it because 75% of this forum are only capable of regurgitating what pundits say.