I had wished that someone else would be the captain. For the sake of the club, he will have to do much better as a player and as the captain. Let's see what Erik can do with his being paired with Varane.
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A defender like Harry Maguire being the most expensive defender, a big wage and Manchester United captain is a big success. Not so much for Manchester United but for Harry Maguire it is. I dont think he ever thought he would achieve those things with all the limitations he does have.
If ETH sets up a dominant tactic and makes the team play good football his obvious shortcomings might not show that often. Im sure there will be Maguire moments where he lacks the agility in a certain situation or will look clumsy trying to stop an attack but hopefully ETH can make him look like a good defender. In Maguie his defense, McT and Fred arent the best defensive midfielders ( eventhough i think Fred is a decent enough player) and in clueless manager (Ole) tactics they make it easier for Maguire to look bad trying to save a situation. Hopefully ETH improves the midfield with Frenkie and a better tactic setup that will allow Maguire to look a lot better.
Maguire doing stuff like pulling Shaw away or passing the ball to opponents is all on him though. No excuses for moments like that.
No excuses for next season though. No ''his head is still in Greece'' or ''Euro hangover'' if he starts the season bad again. He needs to be ready and playing well from matchday 1.
Hooray! This man gets it
Without hating on Maguire, I honestly can't see how this guy is going to make the XI this season. Some of those chances would have gone in for Liverpool if he played today.
I just can't see him getting ahead of Varane/Bailly/new guy (Martinez) and if he does, I'm sorry serious questions will be asked.
I just can't see him getting ahead of Varane/Bailly/new guy (Martinez) and if he does, I'm sorry serious questions will be asked.
I could see him being the main center back regardless of who signs. Admittedly he had a very terrible season last time and I'm yet to see Martinez consistently, but as far as I'm concerned, Varane, Lindelof, Bailly as defenders aren't that much better than he is, and the fact he is captain, one of the biggest names among them, and the most likely to stay fit will tip it in his favor.
I do have concerns with how he adapts to Ten Hag due to his lack of pace and lack of agility. We'll be pressing high, we'll need aggressive and quick CB's who can react to danger and deal with it. Varane works, Martinez fits... Does Maguire? He would suit EtH on the ball, not defensively though.
I agree with this. It was probably the easiest decision for ETH to make by keeping him captain. We don’t have an abundance of candidates. The captain doesn’t always have to play.
I’m sure we even had seasons where Neville was club captain and barely played all season. Puyol for Barca as well. Being club captain doesn’t mean you have to be captain of every match.
Its only really our fanbase that assumes the captain will always play. Probably, we got conditioned to that by LVG with Rooney.
100 %.
Manchester United won't play three at the back with two sitting defensive midfielders. He will be a liability in the long run.
His trophy cabinet begs to differ.
I'll have some of what you're smoking. Seriously though Maguire has never put in a performance like Bailly did today in all the time he's been here. I don't know what makes him one of the biggest names, as you put it because he certainly ain't that. He's just going to get woefully exposed in this setup. If he played today, guarantee you that we would have conceded.
But we will have to wait and see.
Jesus Christ, who gives a feck? It’s pre season! Andreas Pereira often looked like a top quality midfielder in pre season, I supposed we should’ve kept him and saved the 60 million on De Jong.I don’t think the Maguire as captain is worrying news to be honest. You look at the players who’ve left this summer and you would imagine those are the ones who would have the biggest issue with him being captain. Now you’ve got a situation where the lads that are still here are either non fussed or like him as a person and stripping him upsets those lads right from the off.
Maguire has two options from this point, play yourself out of the captaincy role and start in the team or prove you’ve got what it takes.
Either way this isn’t that big of a deal and people need to chill out and let the man breathe, and I’m openly critical of everything Maguire.
Maguire has two options from this point, play yourself out of the captaincy role and start in the team or prove you’ve got what it takes.
Either way this isn’t that big of a deal and people need to chill out and let the man breathe, and I’m openly critical of everything Maguire.
He doesn't necessarily need to be any quicker to do well in a high defensive line. He gets tight to his man and is pretty good at ground and Aerial duels. He is also very good at getting himself between and ball to make interceptions.
If De Gea can sweep more and his partner can cover well, then I'm confident he will be fine. I prefer him alongside Lindelof who is very good at covering in behind than Varane who has a penchant of getting drawn to balls he doesn't stand a chance of getting to.
Maguire getting tight to his man and then getting skinned or caught miles up the field in a high line is precisely the reason he can't work in such a system. He's not "pretty good" at ground duels. In a deep lying back line he gets caught out and that's going to be ten times worse with a high line. Once an attacker is in behind the defence there's zero chance of Maguire recovering with his poor speed and mobility. It might look ok for half of the game if we are dominating and the opposition are just pumping long balls up in hope, then yes Maguire will look great heading balls out all day under little pressure as he does for England against poor opposition. As soon as he comes up against a side with mobile attackers who play the ball on the floor and who have any level of pace, we'll be cut open and Maguire will look out of his depth again. He's not good enough and we are in for another awful season if he's a regular starter for us.
He is England national team's premier center back, Manchester United's first team captain and arguably considered the first defender at the club. The only defender at the club remotely close to having a bigger name in England is Varane. One poor season hasn't changed any of those.
Bailly and Lindelof has been with us for years and has been nothing special. They will need to perform at a level you normally wouldn't associate with them if they are to have a chance of putting the captain on the bench. They aren't competing with a nobody for a starting place.
If Maguire plays in these preseason friendlies and is match fit come the first game of next season, I'm confident he will be in the team. Lindelof, Bailly and any new signing will have to perform much better than him, which going by history is very unlikely.
Imo Maguire is very good in duels when he reaches his man in time. Then he rarely loses a duel. However last season he often made the wrong decision and sprinted towards the opponent with no chance of reaching him and got overplayed.
I have hopes Lindelof will improve under ETH, and maybe also Bailly. None of them has had a cinch with proper training sessions since they were 22 years old. I don’t see Maguire benefitting from ETH , though, but could of course be totally wrong.
Disagree.
The disadvantage of having slower straight line speed for centre backs is usually grossly overstated. There are many ways of defending in the middle third of the pitch that doesn't involve just sprinting backwards. I'm not sure why many act like playing in a high defensive line means the defenders constantly running backwards chasing the opposition's forwards.
For what it's worth, the average CB is never catching the average forward once the latter gets a yard. The key to making a high defensive line work is to ensure the CBs rarely get in such positions. The extra CB and FBs are there for cover and a sweeper keeper is usually employed. That's how I expect Ten Hag and Maguire to play it unless De Gea is going to pull up after every 30 yard sprint of course.
The defenders at the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and other teams that want to play in the opposition's half regularly come up against forwards much faster than them, and do just fine. Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias are never going to beat Miguel Almiron in a foot race, but they do just fine when Man City come up against Newcastle. It's okay if you argue against Maguire's caliber, but not sure why his pace is going to be the reason why he can't be the same.
Defenders playing in high defensive lines are always going to come up and contest one-on-one duels against forwards much faster than them. It's not uncommon, and Maguire won't be the only relatively slow CB out there. What matters is being in positions to intercept the through balls, getting tight to avoid being squared up, staying strong to avoid being rolled, and the other defenders and goalkeeper providing the cover they are expected to.
Maguire admittedly had a very terrible season last time, but when in form, he is strong physically, aggressive and proactive up the pitch in the sense that he tries to get himself in good positions before the attacker receives the ball. He is usually close to the top of the interception stats for defenders which shows that he is very good at getting himself between man and ball, a very effective way to defend against forwards that are much quicker. He is strong in the air too, so the ball is not going to be flying over him.
Personally think Maguire's could possibly do even better if we play further up the pitch. His aggressive style of defending might be better utilized far away from our goal provided his partner and keeper can cover well. I'm confident he will do just fine, unless he's lost all his ability as a footballer of course and perform as bad as he did last season. Then the position of the defensive line won't matter.
It's only really our fanbase that think the captain is some kind of critical matter
Agree with much of that. Also, as is pointed out frequently by top managers, you don't need fast defenders in a high line, you need a good press. If the press can do its job like it does at city then teams don't have time to pick perfect passes. The press is what makes a high line possible. Thinking otherwise is outdated.
Great post. Agree with every word.
Yeah I missed that, an effective press helps massively.
Still remember Ralf Rangnick saying something along the lines of pace not being much of a factor for his CBs, and that what matters is that when the whole team press collectively, the only thing the center backs need to do is to get tight to the opposition's usual one or two forwards and back themselves to win the duels if the opposition goes direct. I think Maguire is pretty much in a position to do so consistently.
yes Ralf has said it as have other managers with these schools of thought, klopp, poch etc. maguire will be fine if the team presses well, which is a big if... but if we dont then having lindelof or bailly instead isn't going to help us, we will still get torn to shreds with a high line and no effective press
You just named a bunch of titles (with half of them underserved), as evidence of Maguires class. Not a single achievement from the player himself though, and sure as shit nothing close to what Varane has done and achieved throughout his career.
Maguire’s claim to fame at this point is his price tag and sitting in with a back 5 while England parked the bus all the way to the Euro finals where they lost. So he’s good at defending his own box, especially aerially, but literally no one has ever disputed that anyways. It’s all of the other parts of his game that people have huge issues with.
He’s poor in 1v1 situations, very mediocre as a passer, struggles on the ball when pressed, and generally defends quite passively for the profile he has. In a team looking to play on the front foot and defend pro-actively while dominating the ball, these aren’t great traits to have for your CB
When the other options are Bailly, Lindelof and a new lad from Netherlands, I'm sure Maguire will be pretty confident of being a starter next season.
We’ll see, I’m not so sure. Obviously I hope he turns it around and becomes something close to what his status warrants under ETH, but this rating of Maguire because he plays for England or because he has the armband has to stop
Everyone knows Southgate does not pick players on form/merit so couldn't give a feck about the England stuff. There are always a clutch of international players playing for their countries regardless of form/performances. Southgate probably only plays him for the quiet life as we all know the press would be all over it. I'm quite ambivalent to international football so really don't care/value what Maguire does for England. All I know is he's certainly not the best that England could do.
Outside of United, the guy is considered a joke and is more of a meme these days. Maguire is notorious for the £80m price tag and nothing else. His captaincy has been questioned for years so that's not really any glowing endorsement. Again, so as not to rock the boat, create any undue attention etc., he'll continue in that role for the time being.
Like I said time will prove who is right in the end. I'm not losing any sleep over it because I'm pretty confident he won't be starting. And even if he does at the start of the season, he'll be a squad player come January.
Eventually his lack of speed and agility will be caught out, as it has been time and time again.
Imagine Thiago/De Bruyne get 5 yards of space against this wonder press and they look up to see Nunez /Haaland making a run on Maguire. There is only going to be one winner.
I rarely if ever see Bailly, Lindelof or Varane get outpaced by fast forwards the way I see it happening to Maguire. He's not just lacking straight line speed but turning speed and start up speed. He's missing the whole speed package
And it can't be a good thing that one of our defenders constantly needs bailing out because he's too slow. The whole team has to accommodate his lack of pace.
He's a backs to the wall defender and nothing else and you need more than that at United.
I think its dangerous to make sweeping statements right now. While pre season, we saw things from some of our players that they havent done in years if ever while at United.
I have massive doubts about Maguire but I will reserve judgement until the season starts. Ten Hag might make a good defender out of him.
I have massive doubts about Maguire but I will reserve judgement until the season starts. Ten Hag might make a good defender out of him.
It always felt to me that last season we played like a counter attacking team that got regularly counter attacked back and this really effected our defense.
Our attack completely broke apart, players like Bruno losing possession trying to set up Ronaldo regularly than exactly counterattacking, players like Ronaldo’s hold up play and link up play, Rashford’s dribbling straight in to opposing players, Sancho settling in, us not having a CDM and many midfielders not being good progressive passers anyway.
Maguire was horrible last season - but it always felt to me like that was the result of the team being shit and losing the ball all over the pitch with no cohesive attack.
I hope to see Maguire back to the form he was before last season (primarily due to us working on a team cohesive attack) if that doesn’t happen then maybe something has permanently hit him.
There are times a footballer would have a very poor season and you have to write off that season and say yes, I know this player can play much better than that even if you don't rate them. Maguire last season was one of them, and it's a shame every opinion about him is pretty much based on it now.
Will see how it goes. If he is going to perform the same way he did last season, it won't be because of the high defensive line we will likely employ because we didn't employ any particular system last season and he was very poor. If he is going to perform much better, it still won't be because of the system we employ. Would just be him recovering his confidence as a defender.
I read all of your post but the first sentence demonstrates it's not worth debating any further. It isn't simply slower straight line speed Maguire suffers from, be it that you claim the importance of this is overstated; It's his overall lack of mobility. He has the agility of a double decker bus, that's what gets him caught out. The poor straight line speed just means he has even less chance of making up for his mistakes.
I hear what you are saying regarding defending in the middle third of the pitch doesn't necessarily mean regularly sprinting backwards. I wasn't suggesting it means this. Of course there are other forms of defending and closing the ball down, winning the ball high up the pitch, on the floor or in the air, or making interceptions is what one hopes to do to prevent the need for having to chase after defenders who get in behind. The problem is Maguire is poor at almost all of these other forms of defending, other than heading, so that leads to the inevitable of defenders getting beyond the defence and Maguire chasing back hopelessly and creating more moments for ridicule and meme creating based on his sloth like attempt to get back.
Maguire just isn't a very good defender.
Agree to disagree. I feel you are judging him completely based on the previous season.
Which world class season from Maguire are you basing your judgement on?
Trying to find the "like" button for this post
Who mentioned anything about world class?
Genuine question: are there any examples of players who have had such a long spell of absolutely disastrous form as Maguire has, and then turned it around and become excellent again for the rest of their career? And I mean players who are already at their peak age, not some 20 year old. I can't think of any. More than a full season of consistently being by far the worst player on the pitch almost every game. Has anybody ever bounced back from that and returned to their best form again?
Fred.
Can't see the white text, but assume this is sarcasm.
I'm far from his biggest fan, but this isn't true. It's easier for a defender to be labeled worst player on the pitch.
I can think of a lot of games last season in which Dalot, Telles, McTominay or Rashford (and perhaps even Bruno) were the worst player on the pitch.
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