Man Utd should have signed Matthijs De Ligt for £85m and not Harry Maguire… who can be slow and prone to errors
THERE’S plenty for Harry Maguire to be big-headed about now.
Last summer, he was the cult hero of England’s World Cup campaign.
This summer, the most expensive English footballer of all time, the costliest defender on the planet — and the new cornerstone of Manchester United’s back-line.
Few would argue that it couldn’t have happened to a better bloke.
Maguire has always had a throwback feel — one of those rare modern players who seems to have a genuine connection with supporters.
The name, the build, the rugged features that only a mother could love, that big bonce which headed England in front in a World Cup quarter-final and forms the punchline to his own anthem, ‘his head’s ******g massive’!
Maguire looks like a sepia-tinted Busby Babe. If he took the tram to Old Trafford on match days, after stubbing out a Woodbine on the platform, you wouldn’t be too surprised.
But for £85million, United should have been landing the best young defender in the world in Matthijs de Ligt, rather than a 26-year-old who struggles for pace and a tendency for blunders.
LACK OF SPEED
It is a glaring example of United’s reduced status that they could not land the Dutch outhouse, 19, who switched from Ajax to Juventus for £17.5m less than Maguire.
Juve’s brilliant Argentinian forward Paulo Dybala didn’t want to play for United either, scuppering a potential swap deal with Romelu Lukaku.
We know from last season’s fly-on-the-wall Amazon documentary that Guardiola believes Maguire’s lack of speed is a significant weakness.
Guardiola told Kevin De Bruyne: ‘The guy (Maguire) is not fast. You will find space here.”
United will not contend with City and Liverpool this season, despite more lavish spending on Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Dan James and, in all likelihood, Mario Mandzukic.
This was a cute little stab at mindgames from Guardiola.
As City receive bucketloads of grief about their own spending, why not point out United are the true over-spenders — with City also having been happy to inflate the price of Maguire and the disastrous £52m Fred, as well as the wages of Alexis Sanchez.
So is Maguire a major upgrade on Phil Jones, who once brought comparisons with Duncan Edwards, but never kicked on?
Maguire is far more than just a big hulking centre-half.
He is good on the ball and loves a rampaging upfield run.
But he certainly doesn’t enjoy the sense of impregnability possessed by Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk, the man he overhauls as the world’s dearest defender.
Maguire has a mistake in him and when you’re an £85m United player those errors will be committed in the fullest of glares.
It is nonsense to pretend a vast transfer fee does not invite pressure.
ENGLAND'S £215m BACK FOUR
And the vast majority of United’s major post-Ferguson signings have bombed — from Angel Di Maria to Memphis Depay, to Henrikh Mkhitaryan to poor old Fred — with Lukaku and Paul Pogba hardly having set the place ablaze either.
Mandzukic would bring United’s post-Ferguson spending to within a whisker of £1billion, in a six-year period during which they have plummeted from champions of England to also-rans and Europa League regulars.
Sure, there is a premium on English players which means Maguire is far from the only man burdened with a daft fee.
England boss Gareth Southgate can now field a back four which has cost £215m — Kyle Walker, John Stones, Maguire and Luke Shaw.
Yet Maguire will be under more scrutiny, playing in a hotch-potch of a squad, for a manager who feels short-term — at a club with high expectations but a boardroom obsessed by commercialism.
He will now need broad shoulders to support that big old noggin of his.
NEIL 'N PRAY
EVEN for a major VAR sceptic such as myself, a trip to the Premier League’s referees’ bunker gave some reassurances about the introduction of the dreaded system this season.
The ‘light touch’ approach favoured by referees’ chief Mike Riley and VAR overlord Neil Swarbrick should make technology less intrusive in the Premier League than elsewhere in world football.
For instance, delays in play should be restricted by the ‘sparing’ use of the referee review area (where refs can watch replays on a small pitchside screen).
And Premier League guidelines also set a limit of three real-time replays from the VAR and a limited use of slow-motion — with Swarbrick acknowledging the truth that slo-mo often skews reality.
I am still predicting widespread chaos, however.
Oh, and one amusing revelation from my visit to the West London suburbs — the room where the VAR-ing takes place is decorated with huge action shots of the referees themselves.
POCH'S BOTCH
MAURICIO POCHETTINO has done an outstanding job over the past five years at Tottenham.
But the more he mouths off about his dissatisfaction, the less likely he is to get a move to a bigger club.
Because, for all his strengths, the blunt truth is that the Argentine is a high-maintenance boss who has never won a trophy.
DRS IS A GUESS
DESPITE how invincible Steve Smith often seemed while scoring a total of 286 runs during the First Ashes Test, he was actually out for 31 in the first innings — leg-before to Stuart Broad, without offering a stroke.
It’s just that the DRS suggested the ball would have missed off-stump by a tiny fraction — even though every umpire in the world knew that Smith was morally out.
Ball-tracking for lbws is a computer guessing, rather than a bloke guessing.
And the bloke understands the ethos of the game far better than the computer.
SCOT TO LAUGH
MANY of us believe the best thing on Twitter to be Mascots Minute’s Silence, found @MascotSilence.
This is a succession of photographs of football teams observing solemn pre-match remembrances, as mascots bow their fluffy comedy heads alongside them.
These snaps tend to be most comical when our cartoon friends have huge smiles on their faces.
So we look forward to seeing Wigan Athletic’s new man ‘Crusty the Pie’ paying his respects before long.
It’s what the deceased would have wanted.