Harry Maguire has batted away claims from Roy Keane that United is lacking leaders, following the side’s abject performance in the Premier League against Arsenal.
In a game where Arsenal were able to control and able to dictate play, despite their lack of goals, United players looked despondent and lacking in drive. The game was decided by a Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang penalty in the second half, finishing 1-0.
The result – which sees United now sitting precariously in the bottom half of the table – was enough to rile up the ever-emotional Keane after the game on pundit duty. He’s not one to put things mildly, to say the least.
Blasting the side after their 1-0 loss to Mikel Arteta’s men at Old Trafford on Sunday, the former Red Devils captain said on Sky Sports: “I’m just not convinced with these players.
“We often talk about characters with Manchester United – I just don’t see enough of them.
“These are high-profile players. We give them a big build-up before the match. I tend to judge players by their actions and the actions I see from this team are nowhere near good enough. You roll your sleeves up at Manchester United.
“When things aren’t going your way that’s when you look at your leaders, your characters – and I don’t see any leaders out there, right through the whole team. It’s a real, real worry for United now.”
Indeed, in one of the most cliché Keane-post-game-United-loss quotes of all time, the Irishman stated that the side is crying out for a leader to pull the strings and lead United up the table, to at least challenge for a Champions League place.
But England international Maguire – who looked in a sorry way after the game – stressed that United do have such members among their ranks, while Keane’s negativity is unwanted.
Maguire said: “I haven’t seen his comments but we don’t bring the negativity into the place, we stay positive and I can for sure say that there’s a lot of leaders in this squad, staff and players.”
United have endured their worst start to a season since David Moyes was boss, sitting in 15th place with just seven points from six games. If they continue the same points-per-game until the end of the season, they’d have just 44 points, which is 20 less than their worst-ever Premier League total (64), which came in 2013/14 season.
The result against Arsenal also came as a surprise owing to their splendid 2-1 victory to Paris Saint-Germain mid-week, making the decision to chop the manager a tough one.
Many have suggested that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer needs to resign as manager – but others feel such a move would not serve any purpose and that the problem lies further up the hierarchy. There’s no doubt that the former United super-sub would have been gone by now, if he didn’t keep pulling these worldie performances out the bag in Europe, something he’s been doing since ’99.
Featured image credit: Getty
