Manchester United interim manager Michael Carrick has signalled that Harry Maguire deserves fresh consideration for England as the national side prepares for its final pre-World Cup fixtures.<\/p>\n
England will name a March squad next week ahead of friendlies against Uruguay and Japan at the end of the month. Those matches are the last opportunities before England manager Thomas Tuchel selects his official 26-man World Cup roster in May.<\/p>\n
Maguire has not played for England since September 2024, when he won his 64th cap in a Nations League match at Wembley. He was a regular starter under Sir Gareth Southgate during England\u2019s runs to the respective semifinal and quarterfinal stages of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, but absence from the national team has followed a spell hampered by injury.<\/p>\n
Carrick pointed to the defender\u2019s recent return to form at club level as a reason to reconsider his international prospects. Maguire reestablished himself in Manchester United\u2019s starting lineup in January after a thigh injury and a series of knocks last autumn. Carrick emphasised that the club have managed the defender\u2019s reintroduction carefully while building his fitness and match sharpness.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering you look back not too long ago, he was out for a considerable period of time injured,\u201d Carrick said. \u201cSo he came straight back in when we came, kind of arrived really, and there\u2019s been a little bit of managing him as well through the weeks, in the games and getting him right up to speed physically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrick\u2019s comments frame Maguire\u2019s situation as one of recovery and renewed availability rather than past form alone. With Tuchel due to finalise his World Cup squad in May, the March friendlies will offer a final runway for players returning to fitness to make their case for inclusion in the 26-man squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick says Maguire’s return to Man Utd starting XI warrants England consideration for 2026. period<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,1083],"tags":[1305,1393],"class_list":["post-8549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-man-utd","tag-bench-selection","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549","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=8549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}