Harry Maguire believes his Man Utd experiences would have broken other players

By Ian Parker, Press Association

Harry Maguire believes the harder times he has experienced at Manchester United would have broken many players and says he has seen team-mates find the Old Trafford spotlight too big to handle.

Maguire this week signed a new one-year contract with the option of a further season to extend a United career that began when the club paid a then world-record fee for a defender, £80million, to sign him from Leicester in 2019.

The 33-year-old has made 266 appearances for United, winning the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, but has had many ups and downs on the red side of Manchester.

Appointed captain by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2020, he suffered a downturn in form as the Norwegian’s reign unravelled, lost his place under Erik ten Hag and appeared set to leave for West Ham in the summer of 2023, having lost the armband to Bruno Fernandes.

Maguire said what he calls a laid-back attitude, never listening to outside noise, has helped him overcome those hurdles to once again become a key player for United while seeing a catalogue of big-money signings come and go from Old Trafford after failing to deliver.

“I see a lot of players come into this club and quite frankly it’s just too big for them,” Maguire said.

“The eyes on you, the scrutiny, the analysis. Every goal that goes in, it’s someone’s fault. There’s going to be ex-players speaking about it. That’s just part and parcel of playing for this club.”

Asked if his own experiences would have broken lesser players, Maguire added: “Probably. I think there’ll be a lot who want to maybe just close the book and just go elsewhere and restart their career.

“I think it’s probably broken them a little bit earlier.

Of his own situation, he added: “I think it got to a point where it got really that low, the mocking and the abuse – if you want to call it abuse – that there was only one way it could go.”

Maguire has been an ever-present for United since Michael Carrick took charge in mid-January, helping the club move up to third place, back in the frame for Champions League football.

He now believes the club is on the right path to get back to the very top of English football.

“I don’t think there’s any ceiling on it, looking at the Premier League at the moment,” he said.

“I think over the last few years you’ve obviously had Manchester City, who were really tough to catch, and before the start of the season you knew you had to put a points tally together and it (took) some going to catch them.

“I think next season you look at it and I think we’ve got to be in the bracket where if we get the recruitment right and everything’s positive from now to the end of the season and we keep going on the curve, there’s no ceiling to where we can reach.

“We’ve got to be in the conversation to go and win the big trophies.”