Carry on captain! Ole backing Harry
OLE Gunnar Solskjaer insists he has given no consideration to stripping Harry Maguire of the captaincy.
The centre-back has endured a torrid season after a faultless European Championship, but he has never been dropped since he joined United for £80m in August 2019.
The 28-year-old, who was made captain when Ashley Young left, scored in both of England’s victories over Albania and San Marino earlier this month and celebrated his goal against the former at Wembley by cupping his ears in an apparent response to criticism of his form.
Roy Keane, in attendance on punditry duty, described Maguire’s reaction as ‘embarrassing’ and his form ‘a disgrace.’
Solskjaer is close with Keane but believes Maguire will ‘prove critics wrong.’
“As a team we’ve not performed at the standard we know that we can do and at the levels we need to be at,” said the United boss ahead of today’s trip to Watford.
“Harry, as Gareth (Southgate) righty said, is not one to hide on the treatment table or try to find any excuse to sit out games.
“Harry is a top professional who wants to be there for the manager every single time and he trains really well.
“I think this week going away and scoring a couple of goals for his country will help his form and confidence.
“I’ve not considered taking the captain’s armband away from him. He’s been an absolute stalwart for us on and off the pitch since he came in.
“His family, his club we are all very happy with him and all back him and he’s such a top professional and he’s going to prove critics wrong.
“The so-called experts have their opinions and that’s their job to put their opinion, that’s not something we have to worry too much about. As a true example of a Man United player,
Harry is always there for his team and his country.”
United head to Watford having won just one of their last six Premier League games. They are already nine points adrift of leaders Chelsea and also five points off the final Champions League qualifying spot.
“We’ve gone games where we’ve conceded chances,” added Solskjaer. “We can’t concede easy chances against any team. We’re playing against a Watford team who are well organised, very good at counter-attacking and very good at set-plays.
“Focusing on this game, you’ve got to make sure your defending is right and then that’s probably the dark side of football that you know you have to work on and we have put a lot of things right.
“But the patterns, the timings, the relationships on the pitch, when we’ve got the ball as well and it’s looked really good in training and now we need to transfer that to the game.”