Harry Maguire was pictured back in training on Saturday, a welcome sign after the issue he picked up against West Ham United. Footage posted by United on Saturday morning showed Maguire participating as the squad began a long week of preparation.<\/p>\n
The centre back had been in and out of Ruben Amorim\u2019s lineup late in the former boss\u2019 tenure, but he was immediately reinstated as a key player when Michael Carrick took over. Maguire featured prominently in victories over Manchester City and Arsenal, appearing comfortable at the heart of a back four and playing a significant role in United\u2019s five-game unbeaten run under the interim manager.<\/p>\n
Losing Maguire would have been a major blow for Carrick, who is also without Matthijs de Ligt. The 26-year-old has been managing a back problem since November and is not yet ready to return. With de Ligt unavailable, Maguire\u2019s return increases the likelihood Carrick can call upon his preferred defensive pairing of Maguire and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez when United return to action next weekend.<\/p>\n
Maguire\u2019s comeback arrives at the start of an extended training period for United. Early elimination from the FA Cup has given the Red Devils a rare weekend off. While the squad would rather still be competing in the competition, the break provides Carrick and the players additional time to rest and recover ahead of the scheduled meeting with Everton on Monday, Feb. 23.<\/p>\n
That window should allow Maguire to fully shake off any lingering concerns from the West Ham match and should also help other injured players move closer to returns. For Carrick, having Maguire fit in time for the Everton fixture would represent a clear boost to his defensive options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maguire pictured in training, easing Manchester United’s defensive concerns before Everton clash…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083],"tags":[1021,1393],"class_list":["post-6876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","tag-amorim","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}