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Maguire being named captain highlights Manchester United’s problems

By Mahith Gamage

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JANUARY 15: Harry Maguire of Manchester United looks on during the FA Cup Third Round Replay match between Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford on January 15, 2020 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JANUARY 15: Harry Maguire of Manchester United looks on during the FA Cup Third Round Replay match between Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford on January 15, 2020 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images) /
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Harry Maguire has been named Manchester United captain just 6 months after joining the club, which clearly displays a serious issue within their squad.

Long gone are the days when Manchester United were a team full of leaders, and a team full of players who truly knew what it meant to play for the club. If Gary Neville wasn’t captain, then Ryan Giggs was. If Giggs couldn’t do it then Scholes could. If not, then maybe Ferdinand, or Solskjaer, or Vidic, or Evra, or…you get the point.

Picking the club captain back in those days would have been a headache, because the club possessed so many players that were truly deserving of it. Those days, however, are long gone, and that’s partly the reason why Manchester United are no longer the club they once were.

Ashley Young‘s departure to Inter Milan was made official on Friday, which led Manchester United to officially announce Harry Maguire as the new club captain.

Yes, the same Harry Maguire who joined the club just 6 months ago from Leicester City. The Harry Maguire who has not been at the club anywhere near long enough to truly understand what it means to don their shirt.

https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/1218125309364637696

This means that after Ashley Young left, there was no other long-serving player that was fit enough to wear the armband – this is an utter disgrace.

Of course, David de Gea would have been next in line if not for an outburst in a media a few months ago which led to him getting his vice-captaincy tag stripped by Solskjaer. Then there are the likes of Juan Mata, Phil Jones, Paul Pogba, and Nemanja Matic, who are all capable of taking the armband but aren’t quite as influential to the team as they should be at this point in their careers.

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This essentially left Solskjaer with no choice but to give it to Maguire. Let’s get it straight though – I’m not blaming either of them. Neither did anything wrong. What’s wrong is that Manchester United’s squad building has been so awful since Sir Alex Ferguson left that they hardly possess any long-serving players with Manchester United DNA in them, and the ones they do possess are either not leaders or not taking their career at the club seriously enough.

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