BeforeKeanetherewasRobson
Full Member
There's a lot of crap talked about him, plus some well deserved comments. I'm not a fan at all.In terms of experience and ability Maguire is definitely worth keeping in our squad (and suddenly we seem to have gone from having too much depth at CB to potentially very little...) but from a mentality perspective the guy is absolutely shot and I can't see him having the character to come back from it - they guy looks like he is constantly on the cusp of an anxiety attack these days when playing in a United shirt.
It's crazy thinking back to not much more than 2 years ago when our fans were desperate for him to be fit for the Europa League final (which we may have won with him in the team) - now he's just seen as a meme footballer who is spoken about as though he's one of the worst defenders the league has ever seen. The price tag and captaincy weigh too heavily on him, especially when you factor in Ronaldo and potentially others acting like little cnuts about it rather than focusing on team unity.
There's clearly a desperation from our fanbase to sell him, but if it's because he's a shit footballer that's not really fair or accurate - it's more because the chances of him having the mental to strength to perform every week in a United shirt with all the pressure on him is minimal. If he was willing to stick around and have a spell on the sidelines and lose the captaincy (which is meaningless to me, but it fuels the rabid online hatred of him) I would keep him as we need some decent quality depth in defence.
Mentally, he does look shot you're right. But regardless, he's simply an average CH i.m.o. .... looks good for England as they have loads of easy possession (few games they're pressed), surrounded by City and Liverpool defenders and two good DMs in front.
Is he good enough to play for us in a back four where (in the PL), the CHs will need to be comfortable in possession/when pressed and show a mix of speed, strength and common sense? Absolutely not.
Hopefully the club ignore the £80m fee, it's irrelevant, it's spent, gone. If we could get £30m and chuck towards a better CH (even if next Summer), I'd take it.