Ole: Maguire won't hide
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer insists captain Harry Maguire won’t ‘hide’, despite his difficult start to the season.
Harry was sent off during the first half of England’s defeat to Denmark in the UEFA Nations League on Wednesday.
That, along with Maguire’s summer incident in Greece and United’s disappointing first month of the season, has led some in the media to call for Solskjaer to give his centre-back a break from the side.
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However, the boss said he had only received positive vibes from Harry and that he would only consider not playing him if the 27-year-old asked.
“Yeah, we even gave Harry a rest in one of the games in the Carabao Cup [versus Brighton], which we normally don’t do, because we wanted him to do some training. But he’s adamant that he’s ready to play,” Solskjaer said on Friday.
“I know he’s a lad that doesn’t want to hide. He doesn’t want to hide behind a red card or a bad performance. He wants to go out there and prove himself.
“I don’t doubt his resilience in that respect and he’s very professional, so he wants to put himself ready for selection and then it’s up to me to choose him or not, if I want to take him out of the firing line.
“I haven’t considered that without him coming to knock on my door, to be honest. I speak to him regularly and he’s been very positive in his communication.”
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Maguire is a doubt for tomorrow’s clash with Newcastle due to an injury picked up minutes prior to his sending off, but Solskjaer clarified that he would feature if passed fit.
The Norwegian also said that he saw shades of himself in Harry, in that the 27-year-old is keen to bounce back from adversity and prove people wrong.
“Well, we're all different individuals and we all deal with different things differently. I’m not sure how you deal with criticism. I’m always the one that [thinks] ‘okay, I want to bounce back, I want to prove myself.’
“What you do with individuals is you speak to them and you sit down, look them in the eye and see where do we go from here.
“Harry's a leader, he’s the captain for us and it’s still early on in this season. He missed the first internationals, he’s not had the pre-season he had last season, so I'm sure he'll bounce back.
“He’s got great resilience, great personality. For me, tomorrow, I just hope he can play because he picked up that knock just before he got the red card so I’m not sure if he’s going to be available yet.”
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