Harry Maguire’s redemption the template for Amorim and Man Utd team-mates
In years to come, Harry Maguire’s redemption arc will be studied. More immediately, it should be used as the template for his manager and many of his Manchester United team-mates.
Maguire added to his increasing catalogue of huge goals for United by heading in a late winner to seal the Red Devils’ first victory at Anfield since 2016. No player in the near-year Ruben Amorim has been in charge has come up clutch for the manager more than the 32-year-old.
A winner at Anfield. Sparking bedlam when completing the comeback against Lyon. Another late header to beat his old club Leicester in the FA Cup. He almost dug Amorim out at Grimsby with a last-minute equaliser.
Those are just the goals. A theme running through Amorim’s biggest victories is Maguire’s rock-solid presence at the back. In the manager’s first derby at the Etihad, Maguire pocketed Erling Haaland. At Arsenal, in the FA Cup, he was a outstanding. Twice now at Anfield for Amorim, the centre-back has been huge at both ends.
Maguire has been talismanic for this manager, and considering the depths from which he has recovered, he more than anyone else is the example to follow in the United dressing room.
The apologies are never as loud as the disrespect, or in Maguire’s case, criticism, mockery and abuse. But if those who vilified the defender queued up to give him his dues, the back of the line would stretch to Ghana and the constituency of MP Isaac Adongo.
He was the politician who fired a cheap-shot from his nation’s parliament when Maguire was struggling for form. Yes, that’s putting it mildly. Maguire endured a truly wretched 2021-22, coinciding with his arrest on holiday in Greece. Maguire was a man down and the world relished in piling in to give him a kicking.
At least Adongo went on the record to apologise to Maguire – ‘sorry’ isn’t as shareable on socials, though, is it? – who accepted with the grace and dignity he showed for the most part through a tortuous two years.
Roy Keane also admitted he took at least one of his rants against Maguire too far. But Keane and MP Adongo were just jumping aboard the biggest bandwagon of the time.
Maguire was panned by pundits and singled out as a figure of fun by a media playing to its public. We were probably guilty of that somewhere along the line. And United fans – players, even – cannot claim they were above the treatment meted out to their man under seige.
He was booed across the world on pre-season tours, from Australia to America and back to Dublin. Stretford Enders will always differentiate themselves from the tourists and the online fanbase, but Maguire was also jeered at Old Trafford.
His club hardly helped. Erik ten Hag stripped Maguire of the United captaincy in 2023, which may or may not have been the correct call, but it is a demotion from which many players’ egos would never recover.
If that was too subtle on United’s part, that same summer, Maguire would have got the message that he wasn’t wanted anymore when the club publicly agreed to sell him to West Ham. At that point, it was almost a mercy mission on the Hammers’ part, and to anyone outside Maguire’s circle, a change of scene and a fresh start seemed the only sensible choice.
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But Maguire showed the kind of stubbornness and mental fortitude not often seen at Old Trafford in recent years. Unlike many ex-team-mates who couldn’t run away from the circus quick enough, Maguire has repeatedly proven his determination not only to achieve personal redemption, but collective too.
Amorim cannot claim to have fixed Maguire. Within half a season of rejecting a move away from United, he won Premier League Player of the Month for December 2023 under Ten Hag. But Amorim and Maguire have certainly been good for one another.
It helps Maguire that his manager prefers an abundance of centre-backs in a system we know he won’t change. Perhaps the defender is fortunate too that his particular skillset is back in demand while Premier League managers explore again the aerial route to goal.
That includes Amorim. When he and United get really desperate – an all-too-often occurrence in the last 12 months – Maguire is dispatched from his own box to the opposition’s to serve as Amorim’s trusted cross magnet.
Do not simply attribute Maguire’s aerial prowess to size or stature. The art of winning such duels is in timing and judgement. Crosses and set-pieces were seemingly viewed as boorish by many coaches desperate to prove their purity for a while then. Now, though, the bullet header is back. And few do it better than Maguire, evidenced by the moments that will define him as a cult hero when he leaves Old Trafford of his own accord, with his bulbous bonce held higher than even he could reasonably have dreamed two years ago.
