It’s been a difficult season for Harry Maguire so far, but he clearly still has the respect of his Manchester United team-mates.
The England international has fallen out of favour under new Man Utd manager Erik ten Hag, though he seemingly remains in Gareth Southgate’s plans ahead of this winter’s World Cup.
Ever since his big move from Leicester to United in 2019, Maguire has been in the spotlight at Old Trafford, with plenty of fans seeming to lose patience with him as he’s not really lived up to the expectations set by his lofty transfer fee.
There’s also been a bit of a backlash at seeing Maguire continuing to be involved for England despite not playing at club level, though his team-mates have publicly backed him against all the criticism.
Brandon Williams recently slammed Maguire’s Twitter critics as idiots, while Luke Shaw has been quoted by BBC Sport as saying he hasn’t seen anyone take as much stick as Maguire.
Writing in his exclusive CaughtOffside column, Fabrizio Romano provided a further update on the 29-year-old’s mood throughout this.
“I think it’s human and normal not to be happy with all the criticism, he’s respected in the dressing room and I think this is part of sport; it’s normal to help your team-mate,” Romano said.
“Whatever fans may say on social media, no one has ever had any problem with Maguire in Man United dressing room.”
It will be interesting to see if Maguire can bounce back from this with the support of the other United players, but it’s certainly not going to be easy for him to play regularly after the fine form of Raphael Varane and summer signing Lisandro Martinez, who look the best partnership for Ten Hag’s side right now.
It then remains to be seen if Maguire will still be part of the England fold by the time the World Cup in Qatar gets going in November.