Gareth Southgate's England will pay the price for living and dying by Harry Maguire

There was a time when Harry Maguire was one of the most popular men in England.

An old 2018 adage proclaimed that he drank the vodka. He drank the Jager. His head was (is) 'f***ing massive'.

Maguire was one of the stars of the Three Lions' run to the World Cup semi-finals five years ago. He was the plucky underdog from Leicester City that had worked his way up through the EFL, an affable poster-boy for England's surprise charge to the last four.

In this age of football though, you're only as good as your last game. The direction your arrow is trending is how you're judged.

Manchester United bought Maguire for a world-record £80m fee in 2019. Six months after his arrival, he was rather prematurely handed the captain's armband.

It's quite a jump into the spotlight. There weren't millions of prying eyes watching Maguire at Leicester every week. It's completely different at an environment like that of Man Utd.

A couple of decent seasons at Old Trafford have been followed by a pair of awful ones, Maguire often front and centre when things go wrong.

This rapid descent has been a strange one that's only turned weirder by the week. Maguire was one of the very best players at Euro 2020 and put in a series of performances which would have gone down in legend had England prevailed in the final. Few other Three Lions have submitted better tournament CVs than Maguire in the summer of 2021.

It's why manager Gareth Southgate still stands by him. It has to be. This England side were on the cusp of immortality and Maguire was a huge reason behind that.

It'd a pretty good and simple case for the boss to argue if Maguire's form at club level hadn't just plummeted right through the floor, his confidence evidently draining with every passing performance.

Maguire was sarcastically cheered by Scotland fans having scored an own goal in England's eventual 3-1 victory. This followed a similar response after coming on for Man Utd in their 3-1 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium before the international window.

Southgate went on the defensive post-match, labelling treatment of Maguire 'ridiculous' and 'a joke'.

This felt like a man fighting a losing battle. Sure, criticism of Maguire on television and social media straddles the fine line between valid analysis and mental health-damaging hysteria, but it's a debate that needs to be ended by being taken out of harm's way.

Perhaps Southgate feels a special duty of care to Maguire, which is conceivable given Tuesday's comments. The right thing to do at this point though is to provide shelter in the form of absence and rid any notion that one player really is bigger than the team.

Maguire is dining off past performances when there's little evidence he's the same player anymore. Southgate has a desire to make the national team feel like a club setting but it has got to the point where the defender would have been sold by higher-ups if international football worked that way.

As evidenced in recent internationals, England have decent depth at centre-back, a range of players ready to take on Maguire's role from 2018. He used to be a plus-point, a threat on set pieces, but now it's clear that the elite will target him.

Southgate is expected to step down after Euro 2024. Standing by Maguire will ruin their chances of glory.

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