Disagree, Maguire is not fine in a high line, its not how England play, dont remember Leicester but he needs not just a proactive keeper but also a pacey partner. But is is far off being anywhere near worth the money. I kind of like him but he is just too erratic, way to slow, passing too poor etc. After all our scouting how did we turn up with him? Anyone could see how good Virgil was at Southampton, he was the next Stam. Maguire and AWB just pointed to our appalling recruitment, we sign players that dont even fit into the team and current personnel, let alone whether they are good enough.
And completely agree that other teams like City walk away if too expensive. We seem to read the Sun and then pay double for any player linked with them. NO WAY was Pep ever signing Ronaldo, we were once again played by agents. And Fergie getting stuck in to transfer business, after Moyes and with all due respect tell him to but out.
To be fair he certainly does play higher up the field for England than he has done for us the majority of the time, on a similar note he played a higher line last season for us with no issues when a different goalkeeper was behind him - and that was alongside Lindelof who is obviously a much slower partner than Varane. No one is making the argument that he is/was worth how much we paid for him, but frankly it's pointless to keep harking back to as this point given it was nearly 3 years ago. I wholeheartedly agree the scouting network should be much better and we on several occasions we have just signed players who on the face of it improve a position with no idea how they fit into what we are trying to do as a team, hopefully this is something that improves with Murtough working alongside Ralf and the new manager.
Couple of footnotes, Van Dijk was ALWAYS going to Liverpool. That was a done deal with the player for nearly 12 months before he eventually joined, he'd even been at Melwood twice over the summer without Southampton's knowledge. And Ronaldo was absolutely going to City, I know people seem to want to re-write history but that was definitely happening before we got involved. Now, whether Pep would continue to play him throughout bad patches of form is another question entirely.
While an offensive goalkeeper would help it would certainly not gift Maguire with more pace. The CB would still be vulnerable to pacey forwards who could easily beat him on a counter. Irrespective of that the transfer committee knew what sort of goalkeeper DDG was. They could have either replaced him or added a CB that suited his skills better. I mean its not as if we lack the funds to do that (we spent 130m on AWB and Maguire that year)
Regarding your second comment its not uncommon for clubs to switch targets. We did that many many times during SAF's era. Shitty conceded three transfer defeat against us in recent years (Sanchez, Maguire and Ronaldo). No one is laughing at them about it.
Except he hasn't been particularly vulnerable to that pace, I appreciate he is slow and in some instances has looked like he's running through treacle alongside players but over the past 3 years how many goals has that cost us in reality? As for replacing the goalkeeper or bringing in players to play a deeper line which would suit him, I agree, it's crazy we haven't done so but that is how badly our planning was at that stage which we can only hope improves.
I know he was overpriced but as per this thread, he isn't deadwood. He's still the second best defender at the club and is a part of our strongest XI. The transfer fee was 3 years ago and under a completely different regime, they can't do anything about it, Maguire can't do anything about it, so it's pointless continuing to go on about it. It was bad business but he's not a bad player.
On the switching targets, I absolutely agree, if someone is too expensive you move on - as I said I wasn't defending it one iota. It appeared certain elements of our business was done by Ed Woodward on a dick-waving crusade at times and that is a completely insane way to do business which has in part led to the standard "Oh it's United that'll be £50m+" attitude that clubs have to our interest in literally any footballer nowadays. That is something I really hope improves over the coming seasons now he has gone.
Great OP