Manchester United are reportedly \u201cconcerned\u201d about Harry Maguire after failing to secure a new contract for the centre back, whose current deal runs out in four months. The 32-year-old has once again become a regular in United\u2019s strongest XI, but uncertainty over his future has raised alarm among club officials, according to the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n
The club is already preparing for Casemiro\u2019s planned departure at the end of his contract. Losing Maguire as a free agent in the same summer would be damaging, not because of transfer fees\u2014neither player is likely to command much\u2014and not because of short-term finances. Shedding both salaries would save the club $38.5 million (\u00a328.6 million) annually to reinvest. The bigger loss would be Maguire\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n
Michael Carrick, speaking as interim manager, underlined that value. He told reporters: <\/p>\n
\u201cI think as your career goes, when you\u2019re a young player everything\u2019s fresh and new, and you\u2019re fearless and there\u2019s not many scars there,\u201d the interim manager told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to your peak years and you feel good, but obviously you\u2019ve had a few ups and downs along the way. The experience that you\u2019ve gained then makes you a better player; that sweet spot of being able to do it physically still, but using the experiences to know what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cExperience is massive, it\u2019s hard to put a price on how valuable that can be. Harry has gained an awful lot of it in different ways through this club.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Maguire does not re-sign, United would face pressure to recruit a centre back in the summer transfer window. That need would come at a time when central midfield is the stated priority, potentially diluting resources.<\/p>\n
Without Maguire, the group of Lisandro Mart\u00ednez, Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven is viewed as thin: the former pair are currently injured and the latter are aged 20 and 19 respectively. Injuries have limited Maguire to one appearance for England in the last two years, and he missed Euro 2024. His most recent England appearance was 18 months ago. Now injury-free, he could yet press for a return to the Three Lions fold ahead of the World Cup, with a lack of centre-back options, Marc Gu\u00e9hi aside, potentially leaving an opening despite Maguire not taking part in qualifying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United concerned Maguire could leave on a free while Casemiro will depart, complicating summer plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1348,1397],"tags":[939,1393],"class_list":["post-7148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-manchester-united-news","category-transfer-news","tag-casemiro","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7148","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=7148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}