Manchester United will listen to offers for Harry Maguire in January – starting at just £10million.
That price, a huge reduction on the £30m he would have cost barely a year ago, underlines that United consider the England defender dispensable. Maguire, 31, has constantly struggled to retain a regular place under Erik ten Hag during the past couple of seasons.
Stripped of the captaincy this time last year, he was deemed surplus to requirements by the Dutchman. But a proposed move to West Ham collapsed and Maguire later earned a reprieve with Ten Hag before being rocked by injury problems.
Last season he started just 18 Premier League games after two long spells out with groin and muscular trouble and eventually missed out on the European Championships. And that run of bad luck struck again last Sunday as he was forced off with a foot injury 45 minutes into the Reds’ goalless draw at Aston Villa.
Maguire is not expected back in first-team contention until next month and by then, if everyone is available in the centre-half position, will have dropped down the pecking order. Ten Hag was key to the £50m capture of Matthias de Ligt from Bayern Munich in the summer and will want to persist with his Netherlands defender.
Maguire cost £80m from Leicester City in July 2019 and has divided opinion since – whether on the domestic or international front. Capped 67 times, he is facing a battle to regain his England place after his omission from Lee Carsley’s latest squad.
And his Old Trafford future would appear similarly uncertain as the club’s football hierarchy continue to clear the decks of older players. Although Maguire is into the final nine months of his £200,000-a-week contract, United have a one-year extension option.
Should they fail to sell him at a cut price in the January window, they will trigger that clause and try again next summer.
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