Harry Maguire must raise his standards or he will be sold by Manchester United, he has been warned by Jamie Carragher – who remains “a fan of” the club captain but admits this season has been a “disaster”.
The spotlight has been on Maguire for much of the season, during which United have struggled. Their woes continued with elimination from the Champions League on Tuesday night. They lost 1-0 to Atletico Madrid in the second leg of their last-16 tie.
It means Maguire – who received a 5/10 in TEAMtalk’s Man Utd player ratings – will not be getting to lift any silverware as club captain this season. In the bigger scheme of things, questions are arising of his future. That trend is only likely to continue now.
Football’s most expensive defender has not led by example for United during a turbulent campaign. In fact, according to Carragher, the former Sheffield United, Hull City and Leicester man is enduring the most difficult period of his career.
Carragher told CBS Sports (via the Metro): “The Manchester United captain who cost £80million was taken off in the game. He is going through the worst moment in his career right now.
“We all have that moment. I can picture it now when I was playing.
“This is something that Harry Maguire is going through right now and he has to get out of it very quickly otherwise he won’t be at the club because the standards at Manchester United are so high.
Carragher cuts through criticism
“Of course he wants to [get out of it] but his head will be all over the place. He is getting criticism left right and centre, he’ll be criticised again. I think the crowd actually cheered when he went off, which isn’t a nice thing for anyone.
“I’ve always been a fan of Harry Maguire. He gets criticised because he cost £80m. Virgil van Dijk cost £75m and is the best defender in the world.
“Harry Maguire is not that. But he doesn’t set the price. He had a great summer with England at the Euros. But this season has been a disaster and he almost just needs to get to the end of the season and just forget about football and get away.”
Maguire has made 138 appearances for Man Utd since joining them in 2019. He remains under contract at Old Trafford until 2025. However, fears could be growing about a premature exit unless his form upturns.
Harry Maguire receives similar advice from Rio Ferdinand
Carragher’s fellow former England international Rio Ferdinand made similar comments ahead of the match.
The ex-Man Utd centre-half claimed Maguire is lacking luck. What’s more, the fact he is constantly in focus is not helping.
However, Ferdinand – like Carragher – has also experienced some of what Maguire is going through. As such, he has backed him to get out of his downturn in fortunes.
“What’s killing for him is it seems week after week someone is questioning something about Harry Maguire, and it’s quite glaring,” Ferdinand said.
“And listen, we’ve all been through moments like this. In my career it happened. But a lot of the time it’s luck.
“There’s moments in careers like Harry Maguire is going through now where everything you seem to do there seems to be a problem, there’s a mistake.
“Every mistake you make gets punished and highlighted. Whereas sometimes in my career where I was making mistakes but they didn’t score, or the keeper pulled me out of it, or [Nemanja] Vidic made a tackle.
“That’s what happens in a team. It’s riding that little bit of luck you need. And Harry Maguire, I think he needs a little bit of luck to get out of this dip in form he’s got right now.”
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