Erik ten Hag warns Harry Maguire of Man Utd status
By Sean Walsh
Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has revealed that Harry Maguire will not always be selected just because he is the club captain, particularly with Raphael Varane fighting for his position.
Maguire was named United skipper just months after joining on a record fee from Leicester City back in 2019, but he has not had the smoothest of spells at Old Trafford.
While a consistent performer with England and one of the stars of their Euro 2020 campaign last summer, Maguire has continually made high-profile errors at club level.
He was dropped by Ten Hag for Monday's win against Liverpool, with Varane partnering new signing Lisandro Martinez in defence.
Ahead of United's trip to Southampton on Saturday, Ten Hag insisted Maguire could not rely on his captaincy alone as a reason for being picked.
"I think that doesn’t mean when you are captain you are established to play always - especially when you also have Varane in your squad," Ten Hag said.
"We have options. And you have already said...Varane...his stature is immense and in pre-season we took a decision to build him physically so he had a bit of a slow start.
"So he was fit in the first games but in the first period of pre-season he wasn’t always, so we are happy we built him in that way and you see when the team needed him he was really there and his profile, his stature and what he won already in the past shows he can really contribute to his team.
"For the team, there is competition and we need that. We have to cover so many games and we can do that in several constructions and we can see from game to game what we need, what can be the construction from Liverpool but also as in the second-half in Brentford we played with Varane and Maguire in the centre, so there are many options.
"I forget because of injuries: Victor Lindelof did really well in pre-season so I am happy that he will be back in the squad, so we will have another option. We have competition internally and that’s good and that is what top teams need."
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Despite this warning, Ten Hag added that he is not considering stripping Maguire of the captaincy.
"I am not looking so far," he continued. "We are only one game. We have a leader group and Harry is one of them, Bruno [Fernandes, who captained United on Monday] is one of them.
"Bruno did quite well as captain. He led by example and he brings so much energy to the team in and out of possession."