Manchester United are in the pre-season ahead of another important campaign and this one could prove crucial for Erik Ten Hag at Old Trafford. The Dutch manager has already made some important changes since arriving 12 months ago from Ajax and that resulted in Man United finishing third in the Premier League, winning the League Cup and reaching the FA Cup final as well. But more importantly, it also resulted in clear steps forward, in improvement in the style of play which is bound to further evolve in the coming season.
But for that to happen, Ten Hag had to make some moves that certain individuals did not like. He did not want Cristiano Ronaldo at the club following his antics and the Portuguese superstar got axed. He did not like keeping David De Gea around while planning to add a completely different type of goalkeeper which will be ahead of the Spaniard in every regard. And De Gea had to go last week. And now the time had come for another important and, probably, sensible move from Ten Hag – Harry Maguire has been stripped of his captaincy role ahead of the new campaign.
‘After discussions with the manager today, he has informed me he is changing captain’, wrote Harry Maguire in his statement, in which he outlined that Ten Hag outlined his reasons to the player. Maguire also added that whilst he is personally extremely disappointed, he will continue to give his all every time he wears the shirt. This move from Ten Hag was, in retrospect, somewhat expected, as Maguire is nowhere near close to being the starting centre-back and, then again, the Dutchman had to once more make a big decision because of the mistakes that happened before his arrival.
Maguire is not even the third centre-back in the pecking order, which means he should not expect much playing time anyway. So keeping him as the club’s captain makes no sense. Add to that the fact Ten Hag was wise about the manner in which he stripped Maguire off his captaincy – he did not do it immediately after arriving last summer, even though he probably felt like that was the right move. He gave the defender his chance, but ultimately knew Maguire will not be able to convince him to keep him in the role. Now, it will be interesting to see whether United will push for selling Maguire or whether the player himself will be eager to go to a club where he could have a bigger role.
While it must be a terrible feeling for the player, United must keep moving forward and Ten Hag has once again done the important thing in a sensible manner, not rushing or being to aggressive in making changes. That is why there will be no hard feelings among the remainder of the first-team squad and why it will probably be only Maguire that is disappointed.
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