Harry Maguire won’t always be selected for Manchester United games just because he is the club captain, according to manager Erik ten Hag
Maguire has not had the easiest of tenures at Old Trafford, despite being named United’s captain just months after moving there for a record fee from Leicester City in 2019.
Maguire has consistently made high-profile mistakes at the club level, despite being a reliable performer for England and one of the stars of their Euro 2020 campaign last summer.
For the victory over Liverpool on Monday, Ten Hag benched him in favour of new addition Lisandro Martinez and Varane.
Prior to United’s Saturday match at Southampton, Ten Hag insisted that Maguire could not rely on his captaincy alone to justify his selection.
“I think that doesn’t mean when you are captain you are established to play always – especially when you also have Varane in your squad,” Ten Hag said.
“We have options. And you have already said…Varane…his stature is immense and in pre-season we took a decision to build him physically so he had a bit of a slow start.
“So he was fit in the first games but in the first period of pre-season he wasn’t always, so we are happy we built him in that way and you see when the team needed him he was really there and his profile, his stature and what he won already in the past shows he can really contribute to his team.
“For the team, there is competition and we need that. We have to cover so many games and we can do that in several constructions and we can see from game to game what we need, what can be the construction from Liverpool but also as in the second-half in Brentford we played with Varane and Maguire in the centre, so there are many options.
“I forget because of injuries: Victor Lindelof did really well in pre-season so I am happy that he will be back in the squad, so we will have another option. We have competition internally and that’s good and that is what top teams need.”
Despite this warning, Ten Hag added that he is not considering stripping Maguire of the captaincy.
“I am not looking so far,” he continued. “We are only one game. We have a leader group and Harry is one of them, Bruno [Fernandes, who captained United on Monday] is one of them.
“Bruno did quite well as captain. He led by example and he brings so much energy to the team in and out of possession.”
