It has been a busy couple of days for Manchester United’s squad members with many of them taking to social media to fire back at claims of a dressing room “rift”. Harry Maguire is one such player who has come out and rubbished the rumours of a division between him and top scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Mirror exclusively broke the news that there is a split in the United dressing room between the club’s captain and blue-eyed boy, Ronaldo; this was due to a rumour that manager Ralf Rangnick’s made a decision to change the captaincy — a move said not to have gone down well with Maguire.
The story from the Mirror goes:
"Mirror Football exclusively revealed on Thursday night that there is growing friction in the United dressing room, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire embroiled in a power struggle over the captaincy.Interim boss Ralf Rangnick has called on Ronaldo to mentor the young players within the squad, which is understood to have led to friction with Maguire."
Following the news of the dressing room separation, many of the club’s first-team players hit back at these reports; players included are Bruno Fernandes, Marcus Rashford, Fred, the captain and even the manager himself.
Harry Maguire stated that the United locker room is “united and focused on Sunday”. While the manager answered firmly in his press conference and labelled it as “absolutely nonsense“.
I’ve seen a lot of reports about this club that aren’t true and this is another. Not going to start posting about everything that is written but I needed to make this one clear. We’re united and focused on Sunday. Enjoy your day everyone 💪🏻 @ManUtd https://t.co/YxLhQn8pqf
— Harry Maguire (@HarryMaguire93) February 18, 2022
The Manchester United manager on the rumours of the captaincy scrabble:
"Well, to start with, I must say that this is absolutely nonsense. I have never spoken with any player about a possible change of captaincy and Harry is fully aware of that and so is Cristiano, and all the other players.So this has never been an issue for me, it is me who decides the captain and, therefore, there is no reason to speak about that with any other person. Harry is our captain and will stay our captain until the end of the season and there is nothing else to add on to that."
Forward Rashford believes the media is making it up as they go along and the media themselves are trying to create a divide in the Manchester United camp.