A lot rides on result at Foxes for £80m man
WHEN Harry Maguire saw that United’s season was scheduled to end at Leicester City there must have always been the fear that it was destiny that there would be something riding on the occasion.
Neither side will be short of motivation for a winner-takes-all clash when it comes to Champions League qualification, but Maguire will be desperate to make sure his new side finishes above his old one, while the Foxes will want to show they’ve not been unduly hindered since his £80m departure.
For once since the season restarted Maguire may see it as a blessing that the King Power Stadium will be empty, so the home fans won’t be able to recreate the ditty aimed at him at Old Trafford back in September, the catchy tune basically suggesting that Caglar Soyuncu’s form meant they weren’t missing their England international, only in slightly more straightforward terms...
On paper Leicester don’t appear to have missed Maguire, with Champions League qualification still a possibility going into the final day of the season, but assessing the 26-year-old’s first season at Old Trafford is much tougher.
If Maguire completes the game on Sunday he will have played every minute of his first Premier League season as a United player, while his influence as a leader on and off the pitch was so impressive he was named club captain in January.
United’s defensive record has also improved for his arrival. With one game to play United have conceded 18 goals fewer than they did in the whole of last season. At the moment they’re averaging marginally below a goal a game against and have conceded only one more goal than City and three more than Liverpool.
But is United’s defence as secure as those bare numbers suggest? And has Maguire been the defensive transformation United expected? The jury is still just about out on that.
There have been moments defensively since the restart where Maguire hasn’t covered himself in glory, notably for the goals scored by Steven Bergwijn for Tottenham and Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas, and he’s looked shaken at times.
Maguire rarely looked flustered at Leicester, but a big part of that was that he developed a fine understanding with Jonny Evans, who didn’t receive the headlines of his colleague.
At United Maguire is yet to strike up the same level of understanding with Victor Lindelof. The Swede has started alongside him in 34 of United’s 37 Premier League games but the partnership still doesn’t look entirely natural.
How United go about fixing that will be fascinating. It doesn’t necessarily mean more investment in another central defender, although there is clearly a school of thought that a left-footed option would complement Maguire.
As the regular back four settles into a rhythm the understanding should improve, but while Maguire’s first season at Old Trafford has been a success on many counts, he hasn’t yet struck up a partnership that looks here to stay.