Amid an era in which no transfer fee seems to have any basis in reality, it’s hard to tell exactly what Manchester United would be paying for should their £65million interest in Harry Maguire come to fruition.
Are they paying big for a beastly yet playmaking centre-half who has pushed himself up almost every rung of the English football ladder, starting in League One at Sheffield United and climaxing with a starring role in the England team at the 2018 World Cup?
Or are United coughing up the most they will have ever paid for a defender merely for the idea that Maguire has become – the meme-inspiring, Roy-of-the-Rovers-esque cult hero known as Slab-Head, famed for nonchalantly resting his arm on the edge of swimming pools and so oxymoronically combining the cumbersome brawn of a typically English centre-half with the surprising drive and ingenuity of a young Gerard Pique?
In many ways, it’s no different to United re-signing Paul Pogba for a world-record fee, knowing they’d have to pay more because the French World Cup winner has become such a powerful marketing force as one of the most recognised social media influencers in the world.
The idea of Maguire, a working-class every-man ready to put his pavement-compared forehead where it hurts yet blessed with the gift of occasionally fancy footwork, is less commercially affluent but has likewise become its own separate entity, one that apparently commands a transfer fee that would almost quadruple an investment Leicester City made just one summer ago.
In any case, whether United are attracted to the myth of Maguire or the player himself, they’re paying a premium on a premium. World Cup performances always amplify price-tags, and price-tags for English players are always amplified anyway but especially when they’re under the age of 26 and have already represented the Three Lions at senior level.
The £65million feels like those premiums aren’t just being added on either; rather, multiplied to almost match what Liverpool paid for Virgil van Dijk just six months ago – a centre-back who was arguably the most dominant defender in the Premier League for much of his time at Southampton, who had already played regular Champions League football with Celtic and who was already the completely polished product, a touch of ring-rust excluded, by the time he arrived at Anfield.
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The 6 foot 4 Leicester man is a little rawer, a little less proven and a little less reliable. For all of his whimsical moments bringing the ball out for Leicester last season, there were plenty of fatal mistakes as well – wayward passes in dangerous areas, possession losses when attempting to dribble past centre-forwards and quite simply positional naivety, pushing so far up Leicester’s defence was left with gaping holes.
In fact, no centre-half to make more than 10 Premier League appearances last season suffered more unsuccessful touches per match than Maguire, 0.7, and only one – Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger – had a worse average for direct dispossessions per match, 0.6. His passing accuracy, meanwhile, was just 78%, 11% lower than it was at the World Cup.
And that last statistic really highlights the danger with Maguire, not to mention what a fantastic job Gareth Southgate and his tactical mastermind Steve Holland did at the World Cup. The idiosyncratic 3-1-4-2 system accommodated the individual strengths of each player almost perfectly but particularly in the case of Maguire and John Stones – who has earned equal praise for the ball-playing instincts he showed in Russia.
There’s always safety in numbers and a back three gave Maguire that extra bit of protection, especially with Kyle Walker providing such incredible speed on the cover.
At Old Trafford, Maguire won’t have that luxury, at least not to the same extent. In a back four at Leicester last season rather than a back three, he made mistakes and overcommitted. And if there’s one manager who won’t stand for that, it’s Jose Mourinho.
The Portuguese has accepted risk-taking defenders before – David Luiz, Ricardo Carvalho and Sergio Ramos have all enjoyed success under him – but this United team seems particularly cautious compared to his first Chelsea incarnation and his La Liga-winning Real Madrid team. Perhaps Maguire is the signing to change all that, or perhaps he’ll end up playing half-leashed like Pogba in midfield.
But even if flattering opinions of Maguire have been subconsciously exacerbated by his persona as much as his performances over the summer, unlike the transfer fee United could end up paying there is no doubt a stern basis in reality.
The Maguire myth hasn’t manifested in a complete vacuum; just like how Stewart Lee has become an uber-leftist, fourth-wall-crushing, self-glorifying caricature of the alternative comedian who became an elitist byword for secretly cool in the late 1990s and early 2000s, perceptions of Maguire are born from what he does on the pitch, the commitment he shows and the unassuming nature of his effectiveness in possession.
And in many ways, that’s the crux of Maguire, the real motivation of his suddenly seismic worth. He’s by no means a fantastic defender and in fact, he’s by no means a fantastic ball-player either. What makes him stand out is the confidence and mental resilience to persist with that way of playing, even when it costs his team possession, even when it costs his team goals, even when defeat seems inevitable.
In extra time against Colombia and Croatia, when all hope seemed lost and was lost respectively, Maguire was still battling away in the air, still driving the ball into midfield, still trying to make something happen.
The unwavering belief is how Maguire has become so likeable, so relatable as a typically English hero of dogged determination in the face of failure, and for United that could be vitally important. The fans haven’t felt truly uunited since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, and the problem only seems to have exacerbated under Mourinho; some accept the Portuguese’s pragmatism, others are simply appalled by it.
Maguire though, represents someone to rally around, someone to champion and inspire an increasingly underwhelmed fan base, because even when he’s not playing well, he’ll always play with his heart on his sleeve. After two seasons of handbrake performances under Mourinho, that courage and conviction seems well worth £65million.
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