[Pirlo'sBeard]

He was decent in the first half. You have a very strange idea of the word "poor." Keeping a clean sheet and them barely having any chances gives him a default "job done" in that first half.

He was all over the place in the first half. Exposed once again in Ten Hag's system.

 

[Elcabron]

Agree let's hope it's the case.

Tbh I always feel a bit for him because of the amount of abuses he got from our own fans and football fans in general. He's almost a meme now. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve that but still a bit too much imo. He's a pretty decent modern CB, just not suited to the style we're playing now.

Agree with all of that. I'm sure Spurs or Newcastle would be glad to have him not to mention the likes of Everton, Villa etc. Could see West Ham being a good fit as well actually.

Absaloutely doesn't deserve the abuse he got over the last 12 months.

 

[Shimo]

Solid performance but, no surprise still a lot of ill will towards him. Let him stick to simple job of being a defender first and foremost, less responsibility on the ball and at some point the captaincy.

 

[UpWithRivers]

I really have no idea why people think Maguire was class. He was all over the place until the last 25 mins. He was diving into challenges and not getting the ball, he wasnt covering the space left by Dallot and Benrahma was having a field day and his passing was missing the target. First 65 mins he was a 5/10 at best. Last 25 he would be a 7/10 so 6/10 overall. I think the other defenders covered for him and pulled him through the game. Understandable because he was rusty and looked like he lacked confidence. But he grew into the game so fair play to him. I think he can get better and better with a few games under his belt.

 

[westmeath]

There’s no way we would have retreated inside our 18 yard line like we did late on if we had Varane instead of Harry.

 

[Steven7290]

Defensively I thought he has a good game, if not great for a defender for all the actions he was involved in late 2nd half. For the team overall play, his own contribution when we are in posession, it was nothing to write home about. His decision making and timing, amount of touches on the ball and impact of his passing was just not in sync with the way the team and ETH wants to play. Either he changes drastically in style or we need to go our separate ways for both sides to achieve higher success.

 

[Grande]

It’s becoming a bit to obvious with a few people being hungry for scapegoating. Putting United’s wasteful possesion in tje second half on Maguire’s plate just reveals a lack of interest in watching what really goes on. He was perhaps the most steady player on the ball in that second half. He was also a clear matchwinner both on a mass of set pieces and when we were outfighted everywere else on the pitch.

He had a weak start, what normal people will call a rusty start for a normal player not having played for one and a half months. Dithered in poaitioning, overran a few challenges, some silly misplaced passes. It shows why it’s good to get players going.

I’m a bit of a Lindelöf fan, but in this game, I don’t think we’d have won without Maguire in that second half.

 

[Longlivekeano]

I think he was told by ETG to keep it simple. Win aerial headers, defend deep so he won’t get exposed for pace and in possession, just pass it 5-10 m to Martinez or a CM who is better on the ball.

 

[Mas Risky]

For a captain, he's not really the most popular figure in our defense, let alone in the dressing room, is he? The chemistry between De Gea and Martinez or Dalot is there for all to see, but nobody even congratulates Maguire after his important tackle in the second half.

 

[JeffFromHK]

This game tells everything about Maguire,

he is a poor player for a team on the front foot. he is slow with the ball (which reduces the number of attacks we have and reduce the probability of us scoring), and he loves leaving his own position to charge for the ball (which fails most of the time) leaving a hole for opponents to attack. He also lacks composure and when he has 2 seconds to head a high ball to his teammate, he just randomly head it forward to let his teammates engage in aerial duels.

but when your team sits in the low block, he is the perfect player for you, making all the blocks and aerial wins.

He is a great CB for a passive/defensive team, but he is a very bad CB for a team playing on the front foot with a highline.

case closed.

 

[bringbackbebe]

he is a poor player for a team on the front foot. he is slow with the ball (which reduces the number of attacks we have and reduce the probability of us scoring), and he loves leaving his own position to charge for the ball (which fails most of the time) leaving a hole for opponents to attack. He also lacks composure and when he has 2 seconds to head a high ball to his teammate, he just randomly head it forward to let his teammates engage in aerial duels.

You're bang on. I'd take him as a 4th choice CB against physical teams though. Two decisions he made yesterday (a sliding tackle gone wrong, and another choice to close down in the center with a big hole behind him) would have led to goals if the opposition had a decent attack. Much better in the 2nd half when our line fell back.

 

[Greck]

Wasn't a bad performance I guess. Those instances where he randomly goes turbo and has to wipe out an attacker, I don't think they'll ever leave his game. I don't think Ten Hag is as forgiving as Ole or Southgate.

 

[Abhinav]

It’s becoming a bit to obvious with a few people being hungry for scapegoating. Putting United’s wasteful possesion in tje second half on Maguire’s plate just reveals a lack of interest in watching what really goes on. He was perhaps the most steady player on the ball in that second half. He was also a clear matchwinner both on a mass of set pieces and when we were outfighted everywere else on the pitch.

He had a weak start, what normal people will call a rusty start for a normal player not having played for one and a half months. Dithered in poaitioning, overran a few challenges, some silly misplaced passes. It shows why it’s good to get players going.

I’m a bit of a Lindelöf fan, but in this game, I don’t think we’d have won without Maguire in that second half.

Its not scapegoating.
He constantly needs more time to look for a pass, only for him to pass to a team mate who has been closed down and has less passing options because the opposition has time to regain their shape. It definitely impacts the fluidity of our passing.
His positioning and decisions when we are on the front foot really unnerve me and I am sure rest of his team mates. With him in the side, we are more susceptible to counter attacks and facing one on one situations. Twice yesterday, he lunged forward and did not take the ball, leaving Martinez to deal with dangerous one on one situations.
He is good when we are in backs to the wall situations facing crosses after crosses. I would rather we not face such situations by being more fluid and controlling the game in the first place. He can come on as a sub if we need to protect the lead and are under the kosh.

 

[Slevs]

His confidence is shot and will take a lot of time to rebuild. Doesn't help that he's been given the Titus Bramble treatment, only 100 times worse as every little clip is on TikTok these days with people laughing at him.

You can see he grew into the game during the later stages after he didn't screw anything up in the 1st half.
Good tackles, interceptions, headers, etc.

 

[Real Name]

He didnt do any damage or big mistakes in the 1st but still I felt nervous seeing him on the ball. Was really good in the last 10, 15 minutes, made that one crucial block near the end.

 

[ROFLUTION]

Yesterday we were semi lucky he didnt cost us.

He’ll never gain enough games to get confidence. Needs shipping soon at a highly reduced cost before we pay more wages and still can get some fee out of him.

 

[crossy1686]

Feel sorry for him but he was like a fish out of water in the first half yesterday. We were trying to play it out from the back and keep possession but West Ham were targeting him every time he took 3 or 4 touches. He was the trigger for their press and he gave the ball away every time. It was only in the second half when we had backs against the walls kind of stuff that he was any good, making blocks and getting physical up against the strikers.

 

[ROFLUTION]

This game tells everything about Maguire,

he is a poor player for a team on the front foot. he is slow with the ball (which reduces the number of attacks we have and reduce the probability of us scoring), and he loves leaving his own position to charge for the ball (which fails most of the time) leaving a hole for opponents to attack. He also lacks composure and when he has 2 seconds to head a high ball to his teammate, he just randomly head it forward to let his teammates engage in aerial duels.

but when your team sits in the low block, he is the perfect player for you, making all the blocks and aerial wins.

He is a great CB for a passive/defensive team, but he is a very bad CB for a team playing on the front foot with a highline.

case closed.

Very much agree. Slow in mind, slow in actions, slow physically. He’s of no use long term for us. Harsh, but its the reality.

 

[Champ]

Feel sorry for him but he was like a fish out of water in the first half yesterday. We were trying to play it out from the back and keep possession but West Ham were targeting him every time he took 3 or 4 touches. He was the trigger for their press and he gave the ball away every time. It was only in the second half when we had backs against the walls kind of stuff that he was any good, making blocks and getting physical up against the strikers.

It's evident that Martinez is better on the ball, but Maguire's passing stats yesterday were actually decent.

He didn't give the ball away that much at all, it's just he played it safe most of the time.

There were a couple of moments where he held the ball to long, but he was steady for the most part and found his pass more often than not, only the long passes bringing his average down. One of which was an excellent ball over the top to Elanga.

 

[dubplate warrior]

Solid performance but, no surprise still a lot of ill will towards him. Let him stick to simple job of being a defender first and foremost, less responsibility on the ball and at some point the captaincy.

The problem is we need him to do more than just defend. His lack of agility also is a tactical hindrance. Last 20 minutes against aerial bombardment is what he's good for and that's about it when it comes to playing for a top team who wants to dominate and attack teams.

 

[Josh 76]

The problem is we need him to do more than just defend. His lack of agility also is a tactical hindrance. Last 20 minutes against aerial bombardment is what he's good for and that's about it when it comes to playing for a top team who wants to dominate and attack teams.

Spot on

 

[Chief123]

He was decent in the first half. You have a very strange idea of the word "poor." Keeping a clean sheet and them barely having any chances gives him a default "job done" in that first half.

He was better second half not first half.

First half he went well out of his position to commit to a challenge twice and was nowhere near them leaving us defending two dangerous situations.

He played better second half when we sat in deeper which is what he works better in.

 

[NoPace]

You're bang on. I'd take him as a 4th choice CB against physical teams though. Two decisions he made yesterday (a sliding tackle gone wrong, and another choice to close down in the center with a big hole behind him) would have led to goals if the opposition had a decent attack. Much better in the 2nd half when our line fell back.

Yeah, it's why I think he actually will move this summer. Someone playing a deep line will want him and Ten Hag will be happy to take 25M and buy a CB for 35-40M that he actually rates to partner Martinez when Varane can't play.

 

[Grande]

Its not scapegoating.
He constantly needs more time to look for a pass, only for him to pass to a team mate who has been closed down and has less passing options because the opposition has time to regain their shape. It definitely impacts the fluidity of our passing.
His positioning and decisions when we are on the front foot really unnerve me and I am sure rest of his team mates. With him in the side, we are more susceptible to counter attacks and facing one on one situations. Twice yesterday, he lunged forward and did not take the ball, leaving Martinez to deal with dangerous one on one situations.
He is good when we are in backs to the wall situations facing crosses after crosses. I would rather we not face such situations by being more fluid and controlling the game in the first place. He can come on as a sub if we need to protect the lead and are under the kosh.

What I’m talking about is scapegoating. If you don’t feel it’s relevant to you, I don’t know why you answered. If anybody claims that yesterdays dissolvement of possession was due to Maguire, they clearly ‘think’ by way of lazy generalizations rather than actually analyzing the match.

90% of Maguire’s weak/rusty play happened the first 30/35 mins. This did not himder us in dominating the match for the whole of the first half, in fact we had total control, with an under par Maguire in the team. The last 55 mins he made very few mistakes, and were among the more decisive and succesfull in our on the ball play. It was clearly not due to him that our on the ball play halted. In fact, players like Casemiro, Martinez, Dalot, even Eriksen made uncharacteristic errors on the ball, in addition to rash handling by Bruno and Rash, and Elanga not being able to help out with movement or possession. This lost us control of the game, and forced Maguire to bail us out several times at the end. Blaming Maguire for us ceding control of the match yesterday is not in itself scapegoating, but it is IMO equivalent to being an unwitting part of scapegoating by not seeing first and thinking after, but just taking as given old generalizations based on a selction of bad previous performances, and mass produced by a smaller crew of scapegoat hungry fans and largely anonymous commentators.

 

[Robbie Boy]

Was a 6/10 performance at absolute best.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Fair play Harry.

 

[VP89]

Nervous first half after a long time back but a value add for the second half.

I still think he's a 4th choice CB but he's a good option when his confidence is up.

 

[DanNistelrooy]

A few shaky moments in the first half but overall was a good return to the starting 11. Hopefully he can build some confidence from this, it was good to hear less boos in the stadium too in comparison to Thursday night - Europa games must attract more cretins

Won pretty much every header from corners which West Ham were always going to be a threat from with Zouma, Dawson, Soucek etc - think a lot of fans take that for granted when he plays. He will be crucial for us this season given we can't trust Varane to stay fit all season.

 

[K Stand Knut]

Not surprised to see Maguire still getting grief for what was ultimately a pretty decent game.

Is he the future at the heart of our defence? No. Can he be useful if he steps in for the odd game like yesterday and play like that? Absolutely.

Nothing standout from yesterday and he is clearly the weak link in the team but generally played well.

Anybody giving him grief and supporting Ronaldo needs to give their head a wobble. He is being very professional about it all, he just isn’t quite the standards that we want, and probably never was

 

[JB7]

There’s no way we would have retreated inside our 18 yard line like we did late on if we had Varane instead of Harry.

What, like at Everton?

 

[Lentwood]

It' shows there are a few people who struggle to be objective when we put-in an excellent battling defensive performance to grind-out a 1-0 win and yet still people want to come in here and criticise one of the centre halves.

 

[Rilz]

So I was at the game and the thing that stood out with him is just how poor in posession he is...wasn't he supposed to be a 'ball playing centre back' when we bought him!

Constantly takes 3-4 touches on the ball to martinez' 1-2, constantly dithering on the ball then passing it back for martinez to have a go and break the lines. On the few occasions he had to try an make a line breaking pass, he gave it away.

Agreed that he got better in the game in the second half, but thats when we gave the ball up and had to defend like our lives depended on it - i thought we were trying to transition into a dominant ball retaining football team? its obvious that Maguire has no place in the squad, let alone first 11 if we are looking to progress this team to the city/liverpool (of last year) standard.

 

[AltiUn]

I thought he was horrible when we were in command. He made poor decisions, missed tackles, got caught out, slow on the ball etc. Good at clearing the ball when we were pressed at the end of the match.

Very good assessment of his game actually. This is how I felt but couldn’t formulate it.

 

[mctrials23]

Very much agree. Slow in mind, slow in actions, slow physically. He’s of no use long term for us. Harsh, but its the reality.

Yep. This is the core of his problems. He is not capable of playing in a team that isn't sitting deep.

Even the times when he brought the ball forwards you could see the issues he has. He doesn't make good decisions and doesn't have the mobility/speed of thought to react to a changing situation in front of him. This was a widespread issue under Ole for a lot of our players but I think for many that was an issue of options and coaching. Maguire just isn't nimble enough to play the CB role in the team we want to be.

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

The match was good evidence of how if he went to a team lower in the table, a more defensive side , he'd probably do really well. When you sit back and his job is to make blocks and head it away he's pretty good.

Can imagine him at Everton or West Ham being a success.

He doesn't suit the way a top team should play at all though and that's the issue.

 

[GueRed]

The anti-Maguire nerds on my twitter football timeline this morning (some on here too it seems) quite upset and bitter Maguire played alright and finished the game strong.

Overall a good return start, he improved as the game wore on.

Hopefully he can build on yesterday's performance because ten Hag needs a reliable and consistent Maguire.

 

[jeepers]

Haters should want him to do well in games, no? That way the club will be in a better position to minimise the loss, and more clubs would be interested in him as he’s not past it/a liability and just went through a poor patch of form.

That said, are those who constantly insist he is good on the ball still around? Would like to know your opinions now with comparison to having a defender of Martinez’s quality on the ball in the team.

 

[Kostov]

He was all over the place in the first half. Exposed once again in Ten Hag's system.

He missed a fecking tackle to a winger running straight at him. In translation "he was all over the place" Just like Lisandro was in another situation "all over the place" just like Varane when he injured himself last week.

 

[Kostov]

Haters should want him to do well in games, no? That way the club will be in a better position to minimise the loss, and more clubs would be interested in him as he’s not past it/a liability and just went through a poor patch of form.

That said, are those who constantly insist he is good on the ball still around? Would like to know your opinions now with comparison to having a defender of Martinez’s quality on the ball in the team.

Can you please enlighten us what was the big difference in their ball playing abilities? One of them has has couple of years and countless of games under the same coach the other has had about 3 months in which he was out with injury half of the time.

Also Lisandro also pinged a stupid pass and missed yesterday. The biggest difference to me is that one of them knows what is doing and what is expected of him the other one is new to this type of play and so devoid of confidence.

 

[Kostov]

There’s no way we would have retreated inside our 18 yard line like we did late on if we had Varane instead of Harry.

Couple of very stupid posts on here but this one takes the biscuit.