It’s finally go to a stage where I actually feel sorry for Harry Maguire now.
I completely agree with Michail Antonio, when he says it’s become embarrassing now. And even Harry Maguire’s Mum has chimed in now, saying that she wouldn’t wish this kind of abuse on anybody.
But how did we get here?
Harry Maguire joined Manchester United in the summer of 2019 for £80 million and still, even to this day, I don’t understand why. He had been at Leicester City for 2 seasons and for my money, hadn’t been particularly outstanding, much less be worth anywhere near £80 million. He wasn’t involved in any of Leicester City’s recent successes, not being in the team that won the Premier League in 2016 or won the FA Cup in 2021. The buy was baffling in all honesty.
But you can’t blame Harry Maguire for that. A big club like Manchester United comes along, offers your club a massive fee and offers you massive wages. Anyone in their right mind would be taking that offer, I don’t care who you are.
The blame is down to Manchester United, who seem to have one of the worst scouting teams in European football.
So in that sense, Harry Maguire was destined to fail from the very beginning.
Manchester United, for some reason which I cannot fathom, pay outrageous money for players who just don’t cut it. The spent £80 million on Harry Maguire, and look at what they have spent on failed players over the last 10 years:
| Player | Signed From | Fee |
| Antony Martial | AS Monaco | £30 million |
| Paul Pogba | Juventus | £89 million |
| Henrikh Mkhitaryan | Borussia Dortmund | £30 million |
| Eric Bailly | Villarreal | £30 million |
| Romelu Lukaku | Everton | £90 million |
| Fred | Shakhtar Donetsk | £47 million |
| Aaron Wan-Bissaka | Crystal Palace | £45 million |
| Donny van de Beek | Ajax | £40 million |
| Jadon Sancho | Borussia Dortmund | £73 million |
| Lisandro Martínez | Ajax | £49 million |
| Antony | Ajax | £82 million |
| Mason Mount | Chelsea | £60 million |
By my calculations, that a whopping £665 million spent on players who haven’t improved the team at all, and I’m sure I’ve probably missed off a lot of other players from that list, including Daniel James which has just popped into my head. It really is astounding.
I’m not a highly paid employee of Manchester United, but for me none of those players in the above list are good signings, even at say £30 million. I honestly don’t know how a massive club like Manchester United decide on spending this kind of money on these kinds of players.
So back to Harry Maguire.
Manchester United have a reputation for vastly overpaying for players, leaving most of them in a position where they don’t perform well for the club (shocking) and then have a depreciating asset on extremely high wages.
That’s why from the list above, only Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Bailly and Lukaku aren’t there. The other players are on crazy money and why would you want to walk away from that?
Maguire got a lot of flack for not moving to West Ham United in the summer, which was reportedly very close. However it collapsed because the defender couldn’t agree a severance package with Manchester United.
People will say he should have gone regardless just to get first team football, but when have you seen a footballer walk away from money. They have agents working for them, making sure that they get exactly what they’re worth, or in Maguire’s case what they’re due. If he was on a long contract and was due to be paid a certain amount, you would be stupid to leave that on the table, especially the way Manchester United have treated him.
And then we come to Gareth Southgate’s role in all of this.
He will clearly pick Harry Maguire for his squad, regardless of whether he never plays for Manchester United.
Harry Maguire would have had a chat with Southgate about his England place, especially considering there is a massive tournament next summer. Most International managers usually say that they need to be playing regular football but obviously Gareth Southgate has said you’ll be in the squad no matter what – hence why Maguire wasn’t really going all out to join West Ham United.
So when it comes to this whole mess, there’s no-one to blame except Manchester United and Gareth Southgate.
The bottom line is that it’s not Harry Maguire’s fault he’s not being picked for Manchester United, and it’s not Harry Maguire’s fault he’s being picked for England.
The core argument here is sound: United’s habit of overpaying for players and then handing them huge contracts makes it nearly impossible to move them on without a payoff, so Maguire becomes a symptom rather than the cause. Southgate’s willingness to keep selecting him regardless of club form also removes any real pressure to leave. It’s less a Maguire problem and more a structural one at both Old Trafford and St George’s Park.
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It’s hard not to feel for Maguire when even his own mum is saying the abuse has gone too far. The article makes a fair point though – United’s transfer strategy over the last decade has been chaotic, paying huge fees for players who haven’t moved the needle. Maguire was always going to struggle under that pressure. Southgate’s guarantee of an England place regardless of club minutes probably made the West Ham move less appealing too. At the end of the day, it’s the system and decision-makers that have created this mess, not just the player himself.
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This is a really fair assessment of the Maguire situation. The core issue really does come down to Manchester United’s recruitment strategy — paying £80 million for a player who hadn’t proven himself at that level was a gamble from the start, and when you look at the long list of expensive signings who haven’t delivered, it’s clear this isn’t an isolated mistake but a systemic problem. Southgate’s continued selection despite Maguire’s lack of playing time at club level only compounds things, because it removes the incentive for him to push hard for a move. The abuse directed at him has clearly gone too far, and it’s worth remembering he didn’t set the transfer fee or decide the wage structure.
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It’s a fair point about the systemic issues at play here. Maguire was set up to fail from the start with that £80m price tag for a player who hadn’t truly proven himself at the elite level, and Southgate’s guarantee of an England spot regardless of club game time completely removes any incentive for him to force a move for regular football. The player himself is almost a bystander in a situation created by poor recruitment policy and misguided loyalty from the national team manager.
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Southgate keeping Maguire in the England squad regardless of club form is definitely a factor — it removes the urgency for him to push for a move and play regularly. That said, United’s £80m signing and wage structure put him in this position in the first place.
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The article raises a fair point about how Manchester United’s recruitment strategy and Gareth Southgate’s continued selection of Maguire despite his lack of game time have created an impossible situation for the player. The £80m fee for someone with only two seasons of Premier League experience was always a gamble, and Southgate essentially guaranteeing his England place removed any incentive for him to push for a move. Maguire is just a player caught between a club that overpaid for him and a national team manager who won’t drop him.
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The article’s central point—that Maguire takes the abuse while United’s overpaying transfer strategy and Southgate’s selection guarantee created the situation—is well made, though the long list of signings feels like a separate argument.
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The article makes a convincing case that Maguire is more a symptom than the root cause: United overpaid, then left themselves with a high-wage asset, while Southgate’s guaranteed selection reduces the pressure to move. The £665m list feels a bit sweeping, but the core point about poor recruitment and bad incentives is hard to argue with.
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The £665m list makes a strong case that Maguire’s price tag was part of a wider United recruitment problem, though putting equal blame on Southgate feels like a stretch when the article says Maguire would be picked regardless.
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The point about United’s overpaying and poor recruitment setting Maguire up to fail is fair, but blaming Southgate for selecting a player he trusts feels like a stretch—the abuse is the real issue here, not international selection.
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The piece makes a fair point that Maguire gets blamed for a fee and contract he didn’t set, but it also lets Southgate off a bit too easily by framing his selection as pure loyalty rather than a tactical choice.
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The piece makes a fair distinction between Maguire’s own responsibility and the roles of Manchester United’s inflated transfer strategy and Southgate’s selection policy, though it leans heavily on the £80m fee and a long list of signings to support that argument.
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