03 Jan 2025 18:37:47
As I predicted some time ago, we will be keeping Maguire for another year. Very occasionally I am right.
03 Jan 2025 19:54:28
Not sure how he fits going forward especially as he loses even more pace, however unlike others he works hard and hasn’t complained. Seems like a good personality and god do we need more of them. We have so many holes to fill it’s going to take some time to get this squad in shape so keeping Harry makes sense.
03 Jan 2025 20:09:18
He has height and strength.
03 Jan 2025 20:23:59
Feels like a good fit for a back up in the back 3 when you consider how many other holes we have. I expect he is good around the club with the other players and the right work ethic. Allows for Lindelof to leave abs we know Evans is. We will need another 2 regardless unless they decide that Mazraoui is one of them.
Then 2026 they can move on.
03 Jan 2025 21:11:28
Sigh. Another year of fringe adjusting and pointing. He is terrible.
03 Jan 2025 21:26:40
Well I think he has strengths as well as the negatives.
03 Jan 2025 21:55:30
However decent he’s been, is it really worth it to pay him £200k/ week for another year?
04 Jan 2025 00:18:18
Definitely with Spenno on this.
For example, considering how weak we are at corners, we'd be pathetic without Maguire and De Ligt who are the only 2 players throughout our entire senior squad who can survive an aerial battle and aren't too old.
Neither of Yoro or Maz are particularly good in the air, Evans is pretty much done, Lindelof is just Lindelof, Martinez is like a Westie at a letterbox, and Shaw is probably scared that his feet will fall off.
As it is, in an ideal world we'd not be paying him £190k per week, but, because of the idiocy of the previous regime, we're stuck with needing to find concessions - one of them being the need to retain players who, while not entirely the ones we want to see, are absolutely essential for the transition to the 3-man defence which has seen some of his counterparts flounder.
04 Jan 2025 00:37:17
It’ll bite us on the ass in a royally huge way.
04 Jan 2025 05:02:56
Another year is good news, a four year contract would have been a problem. Good decision all round.
04 Jan 2025 08:24:05
It’s a good decision, he has been decent and is a good squad member. How much would it cost to go out and get a replacement for him, money we simply don’t have.
04 Jan 2025 09:20:39
I've probably been Maguire's harshest critic on here, I said when we were linked with him that I didn't think he was good enough, and that he was way over priced (at the 50m we were quoted first time we were linked with him) .
Yet all things considered I don't think activating the one year option is a bad idea.
One of the big reasons I didn't want Maguire is that I thought his lack of mobility and poor positioning leaves him exposed when playing in a back four. Yet under Amorim we play with a back three which actually mitigates that weakness to some degree.
Given that we will definitely be losing both Lindelof and Evans this summer, along with Martinez seemingly struggling to find his best form again. Keeping Maguire who at the very least is a capable back up in this system seems like a prudent idea.
We can't sell him as he's either out of contract this summer, and we can't activate the extension just to sell him without negotiating him getting a big chunk of any fee we get. Meaning that if he leaves this summer we get pretty much nothing for him, but will have to spend 20-40m at least buying another CB to replace him. This is likely on top of having to sign a CB as well.
Given our lack of funds it makes much more sense to keep Maguire for another year and delay having to spend on a replacement. Allowing us to focus our spending on other areas of the squad.
If we take off the red tinted glasses we can see that we need two LWB's, one RWB, at least one CB, at least two midfielders, an attacking/ creative midfielder/ forward, and a striker.
That's 7 to 8 players at a bare minimum that we need to have a squad capable of playing how the manager wants to a level that can get us UCL football.
We won't get all those players, and we will likely need to be savvy in the market and maybe promote more youth players to give squad depth.
Maybe it's a case of signing one LWB and then either promoting Amass or signing that young lad from South America (Diego Leon) for a small fee and giving him a chance sooner rather than later.
Or signing one midfielder, and promoting a youth player to be the fourth choice option. Someone like Sekou Kone or Finley McAllister.
Maybe we don't sign a RWB at all, and either trust in Dalot finding form on his strongest side, or committing to Amad in that role, or maybe again looking at the academy at someone like Bendito Mantato who looks like someone who might suit that role.
It will have to be something like this as we simply cannot sign all the players needed in one or even two windows. So keeping someone like Maguire, while not the perfect solution, it is probably better than having to divert more money away from key signings to fund a replacement for a back up CB.
The club will have to make compromises with a lot of the squad turn over and rebuild for the next 18 months to 2 years until we get the finances in a place that will allow more freedom under the PSR regulations.
I'd rather compromise by keeping a hardworking but less talented player who doesn't cause problems than sell that individual, than keep a more talented, lazy player who causes unrest in the dressing room.
First out the door has to be those who don't have the right attitude regardless of talent. Then you rebuild with what is left in a way that suits how we want to play. Stabilise the squad, then the following summer you start to try and build on the quality and improve the squad.
04 Jan 2025 11:26:40
Keefy
During this process of transition throughout the club, the ass will get nibbled consistently - we must concede and compromise at every juncture where necessary.
The alternative would be to enter the summer window having lost the 3 most experienced CBs we have at the club, to be left with the options of De Ligt, Martinez, a very young Yoro, and two converted FBs in Maz and Shaw, the latter being too fragile to be relied upon.
So, we could be left with 4 reliable CBs to cover the rotational demands of 3 positions.
Considering how unlikely it is that United would be wise enough to buy Gasiorowski now to then watch him join a better club for free in the summer, we would need to, upon the release of Maguire, sign 2 CBs - that need and the guaranteed United tax would Bear maul the club's ass.
04 Jan 2025 15:28:35
Shappy we’ve been saying this for at least 8 years, if not more. We are miles off.
04 Jan 2025 20:58:43
Extending Maguires contract is the very least of our concerns. We will get very little to nothing as a return to the £80mil we spent on him but that was a problem in 2021.
He is now actually a pretty valid squad player. Not the captain/ leader we need but a resilient squad member who is 100 x the pro than the likes of rashford and shaw.
Seeing him line up is less of a concern to me than few of the others.
04 Jan 2025 22:01:34
This is why we are in the potion we are
We keep hold of poor players not good enough
Why not promote one of the young kids as a back up? Instead we renew a player who should have been sold 3 years ago
We might have new foitba people at the club but it stinks of the same old decisions
We keep holding onto the same players that have not been good enough for season after season after season.
04 Jan 2025 23:23:20
Bolger, if we are going to play with a back three then we need a bare minimum of 5 top CB's probably 6.
With Evans and Lindelof leaving, that leaves us with just four CB's in MdL, Martinez, Maguire and Yoro as special-ists. One of those is a kid with less than 10 appearances in the EPL.
Even keeping Maguire, we need to sign at least one CB AND still probably need to promote someone as cover.
Letting Maguire go means we HAVE to sign TWO CB's this summer and still promote an academy player as well just to have two players for each position.
We simply don't have the money to do that. Signing one and keeping Maguire as 5th choice for a year isn't a bad idea.
05 Jan 2025 20:26:37
Shoot me, but Maguire is probably one of the first names down in defence for me atm. Forget whether you hate the guy or his haircut or whatever, a year extension is a no brainer. Beyond that who knows, but we’ll have added to the squad by then.