Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has praised Harry Maguire for "taking his chance" to get back into the team and put the onus onto Raphael Varane to reclaim his place.
Maguire, having lost his starting place last season and been stripped of the captaincy during summer as a result not playing regularly, could have left Old Trafford ahead of 2023/24.
A £30m transfer fee was agreed with West Ham United, with Maguire accepting a reduced contract to move to east London but requesting a pay-off from Manchester United to offset lost earnings. Failure to reach an agreement on that front eventually led to the proposed deal's collapse.
To his credit, Maguire has always maintained a determination to fight for his place at Old Trafford. That didn't initially seem to be going well for him, with Ten Hag favouring a partnership between Varane and Lisandro Martinez at the back, and then plugging in Victor Lindelof as a first alternative.
But when Varane joined Martinez on the sidelines for the home clash with Brentford early last month, Maguire was propelled into the starting lineup alongside Jonny Evans, while the versatile Lindelof was forced to cover as an emergency left-back.
Maguire has started every game since, with United winning four of the five they have played in the Premier League. Varane, meanwhile, has struggled for game time despite returning to fitness, leaving fans scratching heads when Evans has been preferred to the four-time Champions League winner.
Ten Hag's logic is two-fold, both rewarding Maguire for his performances and sticking to his belief about ensuring his centre-back pairing has the necessary balance.
"He's taken his chance, but that will always come," Ten Hag said of Maguire to beIN SPORTS.
"We were just talking about players who were injured, so he took his chance in the moment Raphael Varane was absent. I think that is normal internal competition at top clubs when you have a squad. When your moment is there, you have to take it and the others have to fight back."
Ten Hag then outlined his reasoning for often not playing Maguire and Varane together.
"They can play together in certain games. But I thought from the start when I came here, I want a player on the left side of my defence who is comfortable on his left foot because it gives you more and better angles. That is the reason I explained from the start," the boss said.
"That's why we brought in Licha Martinez, to have that left foot. But we have [other] players who can fill that as well, like Victor Lindelof, Jonny Evans and Luke Shaw. They are all capable of playing that position and it fits our way of playing and my philsophy of how I see the game."
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This article was originally published on 90min as Erik ten Hag praises Harry Maguire over return to Man Utd lineup.
