Maguires play this season has warranted the questions regarding the captaincy.
Just to get the obvious out of the way: Professional footballers are normal people with a cool job. They react just like you and me to things in life. Including being told what to do by someone.
If anyone has had a boss or leader you dont quite "respect" because they just arent god at their job, that is the situation Maguire currently finds himself in. He is the appoined authority figure in the team, and is the one person on the pitch that should command the respect of everyone. Not necceserily for being the best player on the team, the captain rarely is, but because of the natural authority combined with backing himself up through his own efforts.
The team has had a very rough time this year, from a reasonably good season last year with individual play from Maguire that saw him being a very missed piece of our defense when he finally got injured, to a pariah in 2022 that can almost do nothing right. Maguire is directly at fault for more goals or high danger chances than any other player on the team. That being losing possession that leads to a scoring from a non-dangerous situation such as receiving a pass, to completely overcompensating in a challenge and end up on the wrong side of the ball. Maguire being dispossessed because he is standing still when receiving a pass by a challenging attacker is just the story of Harrys seson thus far.
The issue with all of this is that when things are though, the players need someone to respond to. And there has been a lot of though moments in 2021/22. The guy who just made a huge error that caused a goal against has essentially no authority left in the bank. The guy who did it two more times, still has no authority in the bank, but now he needs to show up for work and pretend that Mr Champions League, B`allon Dor Fernandes, 80 million Sancho or "All time Great" Ronnie will sit in the dressing room before a game and listen to what you have to say with any semblance of respect for the position you have in the group.
I am sure that the players like Harry on a
personal level, of course they do. But there is a difference between mates, and being the mate who everyone looks to when you keep fecking up.
Manchester United is (supposed to be) a winning environment, and all efforts go towards winning something. When you are the direct cause of events that directly contradict that goal, of course your position is going to be strenuous at best. I think that the players also dont care
that much about who the captain is, but ideally you want the person that yells at you when you are at work be someone that isnt the butt end of jokes himself.
From a public point of view, the Manchester United captain should be someone who is beyond reasonable reproach. Who on the team holds a status like that? Bruno Fernandes seems the obvious candidate. Ronaldo has seniority in age and accomplishments but receives a large amount of criticism for his play in the press. The captaincy would just bring more noise.
Maybe a outside choice like Rahpael Varane could be considered going into the next season, although if we do change captains at this stage its going to be either Ronaldo or Bruno.
