When do we cut our losses on Maguire?

man united 4eva

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Players are paid employees who will literally “feck off” to another club if offered more money. I will still be a United fan long after Maguire has moved on.
Yeah that may well be the case... but ' United supporters' like you will find plenty of other players to whinge about 'long after Maguire has moved on.'.. as you say... Rinse & Repeat.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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I'm confused - why are so many people in this thread accusing @Schmeichel's Cartwheel of "hate" toward Maguire? You might disagree with his post, but it confounds me that anyone could read that post and think, "Yeah this guy hates United players."
I don’t think he’s good enough to be the number one centre back for a title winning team, so obviously that means I hate his guts...

It’s just modern fans unfortunately. I haven’t said anything negative about his character & I even said he’s a pretty good player. Doesn’t seem to register with the mob though.
 

Teja

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Strange thread.

I'm not in love with him as a player, but he's fine. The only annoying thing is if he's 1v1 against an agile attacker who can turn him, he struggles. Pretty happy with everything else about his game (passing, heading, positioning, leadership etc.)
 

AchillesMaxx

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That’s


It’s very strange to read “x player is not our biggest issue” as if that should be an excuse to accept mediocrity? Maguire is what he is at this point, a solid defender when playing deep that is very good dealing with crosses, but horribly limited and out of his depth playing on a team looking to play a high line and press while dominating the ball. Is he the biggest problem in our side? Probably not, I’d say true holding mid is the most important piece we could add right now. But he’s still an issue for any fan that wishes to see United play attacking football on the front foot
After reading through all the replies under this topic, I think you are pointing out some true facts there. We definitely need a 6 who has got great coverage and positioning to protect the back line. Fred is great in running and winning back the ball but his sense of danger and positioning aren’t good enough to make up for Harry Maguire. Harry Maguire is no captain material by all means. He doesn’t make the back four playing better than what they are. He does lead the defense but he is not good at covering up his back four. We tend to see one of our defenders get passed and when Harry runs into making up that space ball will be passed out of his reach and he leaves space behind him! If we replace Lindelof with great mobility center back and top defensive midfielder our back line will still be top in the league. But I would never hope Harry will be a leader like Rio, Vidic, Terry or VVD who command the line well and form a very solid rock and ruthless back line.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Yeah that may well be the case... but ' United supporters' like you will find plenty of other players to whinge about 'long after Maguire has moved on.'.. as you say... Rinse & Repeat.
‘Football fan whinging about player on his team’ goodness me, you may be on to something there.

I don’t think he’s good enough, you do, let’s just agree to disagree & hope that you are right.


It's worrying. I hope he pulls through but tis a worry
Eh? He’s not dying mate.
 

bond19821982

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Agree. Got fleeced by Leicester and the guy isn't worth half of it. He is fine as a backup but we probably need to upgrade in couple of years.

If we wanted an English old fashioned CB, we should have just got Dunk .
 

Leftback99

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It baffles me how people think buying a top centre back is easy. He's way down on our list of concerns.
 

lysglimt

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Do you have a point you might want to share or should I rightfully conclude this is another what-aboutism of a post.
The point is - we have some fans who are convinced that most of our players are crap as long as they play for us - and as soon as we sign a new one and they have a poor game or two, they should be sold.
 

Volumiza

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Doesn’t seem to register with the mob though.
For my part I will apologise for my bombastic entry to this thread :lol:

I’ve been mobbed before too.

Busy day at work and pumped full of adrenaline and saw one of my current favourite players under attack! I think he’s done a great job so far. Yes gets turned inside out every now and then but largely I see he is a good presence for us.
 

Ramshock

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Since we bought him we’ve heard that we need to find a suitable partner for Harry Maguire, but the problem is, the guy he’s playing next to right now is actually better than him. Yeah, I said it, Lindelof is better than Maguire. As an old fashioned centre back? No, but Maguire wasn’t bought to be an old fashioned centre back, if that was the case we would have just kept Chris Smalling, he was bought to be a ball playing centre back, and he had demonstrated time & time again that he is not capable of doing it at the highest level. In all honestly the guy is an absolute calamity with the ball at his feet. He’s clumsy, slow, panics when pressed & takes 15 touches to do something he could do in 2. Victor Lindelof is a better ball playing defender than Harry Maguire, and Victor Lindelof himself isn’t good enough, so what does that tell you?

We don’t just need 1 centre back, we need 2. Lindelof is fine back up, but honestly, if we can even get half our money back, I’d drive Maguire to his new club myself.

I am interested to hear your takes on this. We obsess so much about “He has to play he cost 80m” forget about his price for a minute. Is Harry Maguire good enough to be starting centre back for a Manchester United team who want to ascend to the next level & start challenging for titles? I think we all know the answer
What the feck is wrong with you lot??
 

jamesjimmybyrondean

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Can someone tell me which defender we can get or could have gotten at the time we were in for Maguire that would have been a better option.
 

youngrell

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I'm confused - why are so many people in this thread accusing @Schmeichel's Cartwheel of "hate" toward Maguire? You might disagree with his post, but it confounds me that anyone could read that post and think, "Yeah this guy hates United players."
I think it's more of an accumulation of posts across the forum about Maguire that has got people being defensive, rather than the OP alone. Although, the thread title is pretty loaded and doesn't really leave much room for discussion.
 

Roboc7

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He’s not terrible and is also nothing special, stupidly he’s also been made Captain. I think he will stick around for a long time because no one would even give us half our money back and there aren’t lots of great alternatives. Do have to try and forget price tag but it’s difficult as it was so ridiculous and he has such obvious limitations.

Biggest problem will be if we ever have a manager that wants to play attacking football and a high line, then Maguire would really struggle.
 

Yagami

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He's fantastic, so, thankfully, we won't be selling him anytime soon.
 

Ali Dia

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Thats one of my genuine annoyances with Maguire right now, he gets so many good opportunities from crosses and he rarely gets it on target.
its chronic. He’s had between 10-15 free headers since he came in. His goal at Chelsea last year was great. We need to improve on scoring more from deeper set pieces and corners and crosses instead of always trying to play through the middle. It also takes the heat off the strikers while they find form and fitness
 

Carl

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People might laugh at you but if we had any sort of proper management, planning and ambition, we'd sell him for 30-40 and invest in Upamecano or someone similar.

The guy is just not good enough and he's not that young, so his value will decrease substantially in the coming years.
I haven't seen lots of Upemecano but Harry Maguire has never had a game as bad for us as Upemecano had against us in the CL the other week.
 

tomaldinho1

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I'm all for discussing if he makes our starting XI but the way this OP is written just makes this an obviously agenda driven post.

Personally I think he's unfortunate to take so much criticism because the role he's being asked to play does not suit his strengths. Put him Mourinho's, Hodgson's or Nuno's setup and he excels but in Ole's weird mix of tactics (relatively high line with defensive double pivot, no sweeper keeper & no real organised press) he is routinely caught in footraces versus much faster opponents because we leave a lot of exploitable space in behind. This isn't exclusive to Maguire and is sadly a bit of a United hallmark - we seem to buy players based on their position on paper rather than if they suit our team i.e. AWB is a good RB, let's play him RB and then complain he's poor offensively...Maguire is great for England and Leicester therefore he'll be great for us too...

Regardless, the sad truth is Jones, Rojo & Bailly might as well not be in the squad so it's a combination of Maguire/Lindelof/Axel for our starting XI. I would be interested to see Lindelof/Axel as a pair but I have no reason to think it'd be much better or worse than Maguire/Axel. That said, these aren't bad players we're talking about - they just aren't elite level although very few PL CBs are in fairness.
 

Leftback99

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Thats one of my genuine annoyances with Maguire right now, he gets so many good opportunities from crosses and he rarely gets it on target.
He'll surely have a spell where he scores a few as long as he keeps getting the chances.

One thing that can be said is that he's one of the biggest aerial threats in the PL.
 

Lewnited

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I don't think 'cutting our losses' is necessary as I think he has a part to play in the squad moving forward, but realistically he's a solid centreback at best and pretty ropey at worst - basically another Lindelof.

I can't shake the feeling that he's uncomfortable playing left sided even though as he almost always looks far more shakey than Lindelof both in and out of possession, despite being quite dominant in the air. I also desperately need to see him stop firing chest high passes to our left back and left winger, probably one of my biggest annoyances in the team currently...

Ultimately, I do think we need to buy a left sided centreback as soon as possible, whoever occupies the right sided space out of Lindelof and Maguire from there doesn't concern me as they both have their uses, but neither are particularly amazing.
 

drmuji

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I think we need to understand the thought process of Ole regarding his buys. First season: he was afraid to make a mistake so he went for Premier league proven players of players he thought had the "British" core and knew the culture etc etc. Anybody coming from outside would have taken time to settle and may or could have gone wrong.
But this season, he has started to take chances although board didn't give him what he wanted.
With time, will come maturity and ability to take risks with players. I hope he gets all his players because we need him to succeed. I just am afraid that we may not become another Liverpool and not win for 30 years
 

Oranges038

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I mean Pep wanted Maguire to replace Kompany the same year when he won the league title in 2019 so the answer is not ‘’no’’ for sure.

I have seen this so many times. It's absolutely no way to justify his transfer.

Pep's track record on defenders is awful from Barca to Bayern to City. Would you buy a car because just because someone else wanted it, even if they already bought a load of cars that were already on the scrap heap?

Maguire is a good defender, I've always thought that. Even when he was relegated at Hull, you could tell that both he and Robertson were very good and much better than the team they were playing in.

But he is just not good enough to be the linchpin in the backline of a team that wants to win major trophies. This just is like Di Maria, Veron, Lukaku, Forlan or even Pogba, good players that for whatever reason don't suit the club. Look how Bonucci faired when he went to Milan, it wasn't working, he went back to Juve a year later, and he's one of the best defenders of the last 10 years.

It happens, if he doesn't start performing to the standard you'd expect from an 80m centre back then you eventually have to cut your losses.
 

GueRed

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:lol:

Whether you like him or not, he's our best centre-back

without him the defence would be spineless...

A cb pairing consisting of Lindelof with Bailly/Tuanzebe/Jones makes me shudder just thinking about it
 

Volumiza

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It happens, if he doesn't start performing to the standard you'd expect from an 80m centre back then you eventually have to cut your losses.
Maguire is still relatively young for a CB. Say he’s here for 8 - 10 years and I still think he can improve. Would we still be complaining about his price?
 

RedChisel

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“Agenda” is the most overused word with all football fans.

I don’t think he is good enough to be a starter for a United title chasing team. Do you?
It's overused for a reason as alot of fans seem to have one, especially with Maguire. This seems to stem from the fact we overpaid which we obviously did but that doesn't mean he isn't a good player.

I do think he is good enough actually, especially with the dearth of quality alternatives out there. He's also a starter for England who like it or not are one of the best national teams around at the moment.
 

wattsy7

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Harry Maguire starts at every club in the league, has been one of our best players since he signed, has a couple of bad games after tumultuous summer and you’re talking about cutting our losses? Some of this fan base man :lol::lol:
 

Leftback99

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“Agenda” is the most overused word with all football fans.

I don’t think he is good enough to be a starter for a United title chasing team. Do you?
If Maguire isn't then pretty much none of this team are. If we're talking best in the league in his position Maguire probably comes closer than everyone bar Bruno, and even he isn't.
 

Oranges038

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Maguire is still relatively young for a CB. Say he’s here for 8 - 10 years and I still think he can improve. Would we still be complaining about his price?
If he becomes a domineering centre half and captain, that's capable of controlling not only the backline, but also the structure of the team on the pitch, which is part of his role as a defender. He should be seeing where things aren't going right and getting onto the midfielders and attackers and telling them what to do.

Last night was a prime example, the team starts coming under pressure and instead of being the one to come out and get everyone settled down and put a bit of structure on thkngs, he dropped deeper and his head went down. That is not what you want from an 80m centre half.
 

Wilt

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He’s probably not worth £80m, but if he was on the market for £50m everybody would want him.

Decent player, good centre-backs are not too plentiful.

We should and will keep him.
 

2 man midfield

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I don’t think he’s good enough to be the number one centre back for a title winning team, so obviously that means I hate his guts...

It’s just modern fans unfortunately. I haven’t said anything negative about his character & I even said he’s a pretty good player. Doesn’t seem to register with the mob though.
I made similar criticisms in the match thread last night and about 3 people jumped down my throat. I had no idea it was such a controversial opinion.
 

Lentwood

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'Sell Maguire" - a player who has significantly and demonstrably improved our defence - check the stats

"Buy Upamecano" - a player your average poster has seen play 90mins once, namely when getting torn a new one by attackers WBAs back four comfortably marshalled last weekend

Peak RedCafe
 

Crashoutcassius

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one of the leagues best cbs. has been considered to have that potential since he was a late teenager

obviously if you play to his weakness he isn't going to look elite, but when played deeper and with protection ie not pogba and matic he has looked absolutely excellent. united had the most clean sheets in europe last season, while we acknowledged that he had no good partner and that de gea cost the team 5-6 extra clean sheets.
 

wolvored

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Ole has hung his hat on Maguire. World record transfer fee for a defender. He cant sell him or drop him and now hes captain, hes probably first name on the team sheet. He would look better with Tuanzebe or another quick CB instead of Lindelof.