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2024-25 Performances


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5.7 Season Average Rating
Appearances
15
Clean sheets
5
Goals
1
Assists
0
Yellow cards
4
Boy... it feels like we are running in circles forever. Apparently Maguire is a different player even though we went through 3 celebration periods when we got different CBs in Varane first, Martinez second and De Ligt in third. Those Ole years will haunt us forever I feel.

Your argument is that the masses celebrated the 3 CBs we've signed to replace / play alongside Maguire?

Varane was a disappointment, Martínez has only been a success when we have the ball, not defensively, and De Ligt hasn't been on Maguire's level so far either.
 
He's defo good enough for a top 4-6 club, nothing more than that. But considering where we are as a club right now, even that's probably too good for us.

So yeah, stick him in the team.

Nothing more than that, based on what?

It's not Maguire that held us back from achieving more than top 4, it was most of the team around him, like De Gea, AWB, Lindelöf, McTominay, Fred having starter positions instead of squad roles.

Maguire was rather one of the reasons we could make top 4 and avoid a bad season. Him, Shaw, Fernandes, Rashford, Greenwood, Pogba, and Martial. That was our core in Ole's two full seasons that carried the team into the top 4.
 
I have done such a 180 on this guy. One of the very few players who can hold his head up over the last few years. He definitely deserves to start at the moment.
 
I'd say he's clearly the best of that lot, but that's a good group of CBs nevertheless. Varane's time at United and Martínez at CB are horribly overrated, though.
How?
Maguire at his best hasn't been better than Martinez and Varane at their best. Both Martinez and Maguire have had longish periods where they were very poor and their bottom levels are pretty bad, don't think Varane really had that but he was injured a lot. How is clearly better than either of those?
I don't see how he'd be clearly better than Smalling. Better on the ball but worse at actual defending.
Don't think he comes that close to Brown or would be better than Silvestre tbh.
 
How?
Maguire at his best hasn't been better than Martinez and Varane at their best. Both Martinez and Maguire have had longish periods where they were very poor and their bottom levels are pretty bad, don't think Varane really had that but he was injured a lot. How is clearly better than either of those?
I don't see how he'd be clearly better than Smalling. Better on the ball but worse at actual defending.
Don't think he comes that close to Brown or would be better than Silvestre tbh.

All Martínez and Varane have shown at United defensively, is good box defending in one of the deepest defensive lines across the whole league. Maguire can do that too.

Varane was shit in the high line and the build up, and while Martínez is great in possession, he's not even close defensively to Maguire.

Maguire is the only one from the three that has actually performed to an excellent level in a high defensive line, in a time where we were actually playing our best football in the post-Ferguson years, under Ole in 2020 and 2021.
 
Nothing more than that, based on what?

It's not Maguire that held us back from achieving more than top 4, it was most of the team around him, like De Gea, AWB, Lindelöf, McTominay, Fred having starter positions instead of squad roles.

Maguire was rather one of the reasons we could make top 4 and avoid a bad season. Him, Shaw, Fernandes, Rashford, Greenwood, Pogba, and Martial. That was our core in Ole's two full seasons that carried the team into the top 4.

Based on how often he fecks up when he does play regularly. He might not be all to blame for everything, but he certainly isn't the solution.
 
Your argument is that the masses celebrated the 3 CBs we've signed to replace / play alongside Maguire?
Maybe it wasn't masses that celebrated but the constant need for Centerbacks tells a certain story.
Varane was a disappointment, Martínez has only been a success when we have the ball, not defensively, and De Ligt hasn't been on Maguire's level so far either.
Mate, I noticed something about your posts, you are always referencing to us, "X is our best player", "best signing since", "most reliable signing for" - but the days that this came with much praise and accolades are over. We aren't a good team anymore. Even if there were periods where we managed to stick some decent results together. Compare our players to our rivals, we can't buy anything for "player X better than player Y" because they play for the same fecking team.
You naming Maguire in the same sentence with Rio and Vida, what is that for?! They were obviously, obviously better. And the biggest reason for Maguires redemption arc is that he isn't playing on a regular basis anymore. He certainly isn't as shit as some on here made him out to be, I have no issue in confirming him, but such hollow praise, who needs that stuff? We became 8th last season, we were shit defensively. Why is there a need to name one who hasn't been as shite as the others?
 
Whisper it, but he looks a better option than both of our current starters.
 
I have done such a 180 on this guy. One of the very few players who can hold his head up over the last few years. He definitely deserves to start at the moment.
Martinez at the moment has no alibi, as his strengths of passing, tight aggressive marking / tackling and being composed are nowhere to be seen right now.

So we might as well go agricultural and know we won't get battered in the air and put Maguire in there.

2 of those 3 goals midweek needed his style of aerial defending.
 
I am no great fan of Maguire but he should be playing on form. This is the one of the core issues with this manager. He constantly picks teams based on who he thinks should be first choice rather than based on form. There will never be any true competition if players know they will be picked irrespective of form. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 back-up player or 4 if you don’t put them in when it matters.
 
Because of the anti-Maguire bias in our fanbase a lot refuse to acknowledge the fact he has been our best performing CB the past twelve months.

That Adam McKola clown who holds a weird hate for him is one of them.

The last couple of years Maguire has dropped down the manager's pecking order and lost the captaincy but has kept a good attitude, shown good professionalism and has put in consistent solid performances. He deserves respect for that.
 
Maybe it wasn't masses that celebrated but the constant need for Centerbacks tells a certain story.

Mate, I noticed something about your posts, you are always referencing to us, "X is our best player", "best signing since", "most reliable signing for" - but the days that this came with much praise and accolades are over. We aren't a good team anymore. Even if there were periods where we managed to stick some decent results together. Compare our players to our rivals, we can't buy anything for "player X better than player Y" because they play for the same fecking team.
You naming Maguire in the same sentence with Rio and Vida, what is that for?! They were obviously, obviously better. And the biggest reason for Maguires redemption arc is that he isn't playing on a regular basis anymore. He certainly isn't as shit as some on here made him out to be, I have no issue in confirming him, but such hollow praise, who needs that stuff? We became 8th last season, we were shit defensively. Why is there a need to name one who hasn't been as shite as the others?

Your thought process is incredibly flawed.
 
I am no great fan of Maguire but he should be playing on form. This is the one of the core issues with this manager. He constantly picks teams based on who he thinks should be first choice rather than based on form. There will never be any true competition if players know they will be picked irrespective of form. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 back-up player or 4 if you don’t put them in when it matters.
Very well said.
 
Because of the anti-Maguire bias in our fanbase a lot refuse to acknowledge the fact he has been our best performing CB the past twelve months.

That Adam McKola clown who holds a weird hate for him is one of them.

The last couple of years Maguire has dropped down the manager's pecking order and lost the captaincy but has kept a good attitude, shown good professionalism and has put in consistent solid performances. He deserves respect for that.
Best of a bad bunch maybe... Question again, what do we do with this information?
 
Because of the anti-Maguire bias in our fanbase a lot refuse to acknowledge the fact he has been our best performing CB the past twelve months.

That Adam McKola clown who holds a weird hate for him is one of them.

The last couple of years Maguire has dropped down the manager's pecking order and lost the captaincy but has kept a good attitude, shown good professionalism and has put in consistent solid performances. He deserves respect for that.

He hasnt played a consistent string of games. And when he did play a consistent string of games he was our most error prone defender. There is a reason he's on the bench.
I'd stick with De ligt and Martinez till Yoro is healthy. Then Yoro should replace one of them as a starter. Maguire can have a game here and there. But we should not go backwards to something that didn't work. Maguire has been super professional, but he's not a UTD level player. Him, Shaw, Antony and Eriksen should be offloaded in the summer with the continued rebuild
 
Yeah it must be. Otherwise I'd be able to come up with witty one-liners like you. Lets leave it at that.

Read your posts again.

You are creating fake arguments that don't matter or don't matter nearly as much as you would like to think.

You're not talking about the player itself, their strengths, weaknesses, role in the team, mental profile, contextualizing the environment they play in, the tactical setup they're playing in, how it's different from Ole's time, etc.

It seems like your arguments about why Maguire is apparently not good enough for xyz ambition is because we bought another 4 CBs since signing him...or that we didn't win the league with him in the team?

Football is a very complex team game on the highest level. You could put the best player in the league into the dead last, worst team and they'll still go down in 20th, or at best 19th/18th place. Their numbers and statistics will also take a hit. You could also put players from Leicester or Southampton into the City team and they'll still be great, and still be a serious contender for all the trophies at the end of the season, as they are now. And the player's stats and performances will improve.

Also, you defend together as a team, you cannot defend alone. It's usually impossible to judge a team's defensive performance based on one player, unless it's several individual, unforced errors from one player, for example.

A post from today in Martínez's performances thread is a great example of what I mean. Dalot is instructed to regularly invert into the midfield in every game. Sometimes Eriksen or whoever plays the left sided CM will tuck into the LB position as a makeshift solution until Dalot returns to his position. But we've seen in most games that it sometimes doesn't happen, which leaves Martínez with acres of empty space around and behind him, which will be taken advantage of by any pacey opposition player if they manage to recover possession and play them into that large space. If it was Maguire in that LCB role, he would get ridiculed for not being able to deal with such a situation if it leads to a goal. Martínez cannot deal with it either, but it isn't his fault that he got into such an exposed situation. The big difference compared to let's say Dias at City is that he almost never gets put into situations like that, but when he does, he does tend to get absolutely done 1v1 vs a pacey attacker. But we rarely see it because he's properly protected by City's system (and when we do, with City being good, and him being a very decorated player, it doesn't get talked about). His weaknesses are hidden, and his strengths are maximised.

Rashford gets criticised for every single thing that goes wrong on his side, whether it's a defensive or offensive issue, but how many wingers like him would be any effective without any overlapping runner to help him, often any movement in the box, etc.? Not many. Once again it's just a difference of environments and tactics, but a lot of people will dismiss that when comparing him to another team's player in the same position/role.

And when you compare players from teams that are usually close to each other in the table, the gap gets even smaller. An example that involves Maguire: If you swapped him and Rúben Dias, and made no other change at either United or City, do you believe Maguire would look out of place in City, at the centre of the 2nd best defense in the league, and in a tactical system under Pep that's light years ahead of whatever ETH is trying to implement at United? And do you believe Rúben Dias would suddenly boost our team on his own so much that we would finish on 80 points at the end of the season, instead of 60? The answer to both questions should be no, hinting at Maguire being good enough to play for a title winning team.

The most probable outcome is that it would suddenly make Maguire look like a world class centre half, and Rúben Dias would look like a shadow of his City version.

If you isolate Maguire's performances at United in Ole's two full seasons (and I'm talking solely about those two seasons because those are the two seasons where he was a starter for us, and not because I believe he became a shit player after that), what do you get? A world class pure defender, a high block enabler, with great communication, great anticipation, great organizing, aerial and physical dominance, etc. almost anything you can ask from a CB other than blistering pace and mobility.

But then how do incredibly similar players such as De Ligt, Dias, and Botman maintain their status as world class or at least very solid defenders, playing in high lines, performing well, and doing the same things for their team that Maguire did for United under Ole?

The answer to that is that the public perception of Maguire is skewed by 99% of football fans not actually knowing anything about tactics, or player profiling, and then they see Maguire being ridiculed and abused on social media, and a lot of them will just go along with the flow, because they can't form their own opinions about the player as they are not qualified to, as harsh as it sounds. And I'm not saying I'm a football expert, I would probably be working in football if I was. But you don't have to be, in order to be able to realize that Maguire is an absolute quality centre back, and one of the best among players that are similar to his profile. The 3 cbs I listed, for example, all have similar weaknesses, similar strengths, but mostly play in different environments, and I guess they're not as "memeable" as Maguire. And they didn't cost 80m, or play for Manchester United (didn't use to in de Ligt's case), so that the pressure they're facing is way less.
 
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The answer to that is that the public perception of Maguire is skewed by 99% of football fans not actually knowing anything about tactics, or player profiling, and then they see Maguire being ridiculed and abused on social media, and a lot of them will just go along with the flow, because they can't form their own opinions about the player as they are not qualified to, as harsh as it sounds. And I'm not saying I'm a football expert, I would probably be working in football if I was. But you don't have to be, in order to be able to realize that Maguire is an absolute quality centre back, and one of the best among players that are similar to his profile. The 3 cbs I listed, for example, all have similar weaknesses, similar strengths, but mostly play in different environments, and I guess they're not as "memeable" as Maguire. And they didn't cost 80m, or play for Manchester United (didn't use to in de Ligt's case), so that the pressure they're facing is way less.
I agree, you really shouldn't say you are an expert.
 
I agree, you really shouldn't say you are an expert.

Okay, then, keep living in the comfort of your NPC opinions that are nowhere near to being the truth, but I guess if most people agree, then they are.
 
All Martínez and Varane have shown at United defensively, is good box defending in one of the deepest defensive lines across the whole league. Maguire can do that too.

Varane was shit in the high line and the build up, and while Martínez is great in possession, he's not even close defensively to Maguire.

Maguire is the only one from the three that has actually performed to an excellent level in a high defensive line, in a time where we were actually playing our best football in the post-Ferguson years, under Ole in 2020 and 2021.
Did Maguire perform excellently in an actual high defensive line though?
 
As has Lindelof?
19/20
Def. Line height 45.07 (6th highest in the league, highest: Liverpool 49.14),
Third lowest number of goals conceded with 36 (Liverpool 33, City 35)

20/21
Def. Line height 46.16 (4th highest in the league, highest: Liverpool 49.97)
Fifth lowest number of goals conceded with 44 (City 32, Chelsea 36, Arsenal 39, Liverpool 44)

And that's with De Gea and AWB
 
19/20
Def. Line height 45.07 (6th highest in the league, highest: Liverpool 49.14),
Third lowest number of goals conceded with 36 (Liverpool 33, City 35)

20/21
Def. Line height 46.16 (4th highest in the league, highest: Liverpool 49.97)
Fifth lowest number of goals conceded with 44 (City 32, Chelsea 36, Arsenal 39, Liverpool 44)

And that's with De Gea and AWB
So where is Lindelof in our CBs over the last 20 years? 4th?

It's probably worth noting as well that being nearly 4m lower than the highest lines in 19/20 has us the same distance from teams like Palace. Feels more like we were more a mid block tbh, probably on the higher side of that.
Dyche's Burnley had a higher line that season.

20/21 line has us a little closer to the highest lines, but we were actually closer to Mourinho's Spurs and Moyes' West Ham sides.
 
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No, but you were talking about Varane and Martínez. Maguire and Lindelöf were the much better duo.
Well it was mainly to the broader discussion of him being the 3rd best CB in a certain time period.
You suggested he was better than both in certain areas, but specifically had an advantage on both players in that he had been excellent in a high defensive line, tying it in goals conceded hence the poke about Lindelof.

I figured it's probably a good idea to figure out what we mean by high and then we can talk about the idea of excellent.
 
Aston Villa 0:0 Man Utd
Hopefully not injured for long as should be starting alongside Evans.
 
Was apparently wearing a protective brace and some speculation is that it's a significant injury. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
 
When did he become so injury prone? Such a shame, was a stalwart under Ole I don’t remember him ever missing a game for like 3 years until the week before the Europa final
 
He became the laughing stock of football. I know he didn't help himself with some post-match comments and whatnot, but he dug in and never stopped showing up. That must have been an incredibly difficult time for him as a person. I can't think of another player who became such a laughing stock both by his own supporters and opposition fans alike.

I respect the hell out of him.
 
Interestingly enough, we got top 4 in both of the seasons where Maguire was the first name on the team sheet.

Our defensive records also became progressively and embarrassingly worse by the season with Maguire being the primary CB minutes wise, and as captain. He didn't improve us at all.

We had two of our worst defensive records of the PL era during this time, specifically 2021/22 where we conceded 57 and last season when we conceded 58. We also conceded 81 goals in all comps last season, worst since 76. He's been a common denominator in 3 out of 6 of our worst defensive seasons in the PL era

https://www.statmuse.com/fc/ask/most-goals-conceded-man-united-in-a-season

 
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Our defensive records also became progressively and embarrassingly worse by the season with Maguire being the primary CB minutes wise, and as captain. He didn't improve us at all.

We had two of our worst defensive records of the PL era during this time, specifically 2021/22 where we conceded 57 and last season when we conceded 58. We also conceded 81 goals in all comps last season, worst since 76. He's been a common denominator in 3 out of 6 of our worst defensive seasons in the PL era

https://www.statmuse.com/fc/ask/most-goals-conceded-man-united-in-a-season

You are cherry picking which seasons to consider just to suit your agenda :drool:

Compare our 19/20 and 20/21 defensive record to Mourinho's last season. Those are two of the three seasons where Maguire was basically the first name on the team sheet.

The other being 21/22 when we were collectively bad, changed manager, and every single player in the team, Ronaldo included, was shite. There's no defender on Earth who was going to salvage our defensive record on their own in that season.

From that point onwards, after ten Hag took charge, Maguire hasn't been first choice. He benched him for Varane after the opening two defeats vs Brentford and Brighton in 2022, reverted to a pragmatic style with a deep defensive line, and Maguire hasn't been a starter ever since.

762 PL minutes in 22/23

1650 PL minutes in 23/24, due to injuries to Martínez and Varane, otherwise he wasn't seeing even 1000 minutes under ETH

242 PL minutes this season so far

That's 2654 PL minutes in the last two + the current season combined under ETH. He played 3420, 3048, and 2517 in the preceding 3 seasons, under Ole and Rangnick. The less he played, the more goals we conceded btw in these 3 seasons too.

The additions of AWB and Maguire instantly turned our defense into one of the best ones in the Premier League. It only fell apart in Ole's final season when everything was a mess and Maguire's form plummeted too, I'll give you that.

Maguire led a defense to conceding only 36 and 44 goals in the two full seasons where he was part of a stable team and he was counted on as the number 1 CB at the club by his manager. All whilst surrounded by bums like De Gea, AWB, Telles, a raw Dalot that wasn't ready, Bailly, Williams, and arguably even Lindelöf, but he was alright tbh. However, the only truly elite player he had in the defense other than himself was Shaw. And it was still one of the highest defensive lines in the league, conceding one of the fewest goals each season.

Maybe both Maguire and Ole deserve a lot of credit for that? ETH, the widely accepted supermanager by United fans just 18 monts ago, has been given players like Onana, Malacia, Martínez, Mazraoui, and de Ligt, and yet he hasn't even come close to implementing a high defensive line that concedes under 50 goals in a season...whereas the "PE teacher", the "fridge" and Shaw, managed to do it with subpar players compared to the defenders and keeper ETH has been provided with.
 
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You are cherry picking which seasons to consider just to suit your agenda :drool:

Compare our 19/20 and 20/21 defensive record to Mourinho's last season. Those are two of the three seasons where Maguire was basically the first name on the team sheet.

The other being 21/22 when we were collectively bad, changed manager, and every single player in the team, Ronaldo included, was shite. There's no defender on Earth who was going to salvage our defensive record on their own in that season.

From that point onwards, after ten Hag took charge, Maguire hasn't been first choice. He benched him for Varane after the opening two defeats vs Brentford and Brighton in 2022, reverted to a pragmatic style with a deep defensive line, and Maguire hasn't been a starter ever since.

762 PL minutes in 22/23

1650 PL minutes in 23/24, mostly due to injuries

242 PL minutes this season so far

That's 2654 PL minutes in the last two + the current season combined. He played 3420, 3048, and 2517 in the preceding 3 seasons. The less he played, the more goals we conceded btw in these 3 seasons too.

The additions of AWB and Maguire instantly turned our defense into one of the best ones in the Premier League. It only fell apart in Ole's final season when everything was a mess and Maguire's form plummeted too, I'll give you that.

How am I cherry picking? Did you actually click the link? It's literally a list of our defensive records in every PL season, beginning with the worst. Maguire features in 3 of the top 6 and he was heavily involved in those three seasons. We might have fared worse if he was allowed more minutes over Varane or Martinez, in the seasons where he wasn't first choice anymore. He played more than his share last season though

Mourinho's final season was poor and an anomaly for him because we only conceded 28 and 29 goals in his first two seasons.

We conceded 36 in Maguire's first season, an improvement from Mourinho's last and Solskjaer's first shared season, but 36 is still a far cry from 28 and 29 from the two seasons prior when Smalling for instance was the main CB minute's wise. We're yet to improve on those numbers or get anywhere close since Maguire signed.

This is a summary of our records since Maguire signed:

2019/2020

Goals conceded 36

2020/21

GC 44

21/22

GC 57

22/23

GC 43

23/24

GC 58

Am I cherry picking? The bolded numbers are seasons among the worst 6 seasons defensively in our PL history to date.
 
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How am I cherry picking? Did you actually clink the link? It's literally a list of our defensive records in every PL season, beginning with the worst. Maguire features in 3 of the top 6.

Mourinho's final season was poor and an anomaly for him because we only conceded 28 and 29 goals in his first two seasons.

We conceded 36 in Maguire's first season, an improvement from Mourinho's last and Solskjaer's first shared season, but 36 is still a far cry from 28 and 29 from the two seasons prior when Smalling for instance was the main CB minute's wise. We're yet to improve on those numbers or get anywhere close since Maguire signed.

This is a summary of our records since Maguire signed:

2019/2020

Goals conceded 36

2020/21

GC 44

21/22

GC 57

22/23

GC 43

23/24

GC 58

Am I cherry picking? The bolded numbers are seasons among the worst 6 seasons defensively in our PL history to date.

You just completely ignored every single piece of context I provided in my post that shows you

1. Maguire barely played in the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons, and this season too

2. ETH is dogshit at setting up a defense and high line

3. Ole managed to do what he couldn't despite having mostly much worse defenders and goalkeeper

4. The only two seasons where Maguire got to play in somewhat half-decent sides, without any sort of crisis going on at the club, our number of conceded goals was 36 and 44. Both are good numbers for a side that was nothing more than a top 4 contender team in both of those seasons, carried by a group of ~5-7 players in both seasons, Maguire being one of them.

You are calling Maguire a "common denominator" in a season where he played 1650 PL minutes, mate. What is that if not an agenda?
 
Maguire is crap
Until you need someone to step up and bail you out, then he turns up trumps.
 
You just completely ignored every single piece of context I provided in my post that shows you

1. Maguire barely played in the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons, and this season too

2. ETH is dogshit at setting up a defense and high line

3. Ole managed to do what he couldn't despite having mostly much worse defenders and goalkeeper

4. The only two seasons where Maguire got to play in somewhat half-decent sides, without any sort of crisis going on at the club, our number of conceded goals was 36 and 44. Both are good numbers for a side that was nothing more than a top 4 contender team in both of those seasons, carried by a group of ~5-7 players in both seasons, Maguire being one of them.

You are calling Maguire a "common denominator" in a season where he played 1650 PL minutes, mate. What is that if not an agenda?

1. Yes he barely played 22/23, and we conceded 'only' 43 goals, our best record since Maguire's first season at 36 goals conceded. Allowing Martinez and Varane to forge a partnership and keeping Maguire out in turn helped the team keep goals out.

In 23/24 he played 1651 minutes, more than twice his 22/23 minutes, and with Martinez out for a long injury spell Maguire was asked to step in and we conceded our most goals on record in the PL. He's literally prominently involved when our records are at their worst.

2. We all know this, and Maguire's presence exacerbated things as we know he's not suited to a high line no matter how its set up. Varane and Martinez in the little time they had made for our most conducive CB partnership under ETH

3. Our defensive organisation wasn't much better under Solskjaer. We also progressively became worse defensively under his charge. It coincides with his signing of Maguire up until his final disaster of a season

4. Solskjaer spent 400M at united and that included what was then seen as more than decent defensive additions in Varane, AWB and Telles. Maguire was and still is the most expensive CB in world football. Are you telling me a return of 36 and 44 goals conceded in seasons without a crisis as you say reflects serious improvement over Mourinhos first two equally zero crisis seasons where we conceded much less? We set a standard prior that haven't reached again since.

Again, Maguire played 1651 minutes in 23/24, 18 full league matches, which is a decent chunk. He stepped in for Martinez and didn't help maintain the standard of the season prior where we only conceded 43 with Maguire out of the picture in a big way. We ended the 23/24 season with the worst defensive record of our PL era with Maguire expected to hold the fort when our defensive options dwindled. He became part of our worst season on record

How are you not connecting the dots? We improved without him and we sustained our worst record the season after, with his minutes more than doubling and Martinez who massively improved our defense being out. Hardly an agenda.
 
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