Maguire urges senior players to step up in bid to win Europa League final spot with the second leg on Thursday.
Maguire urges United’s senior players to ‘step up’ and seal Europa League final spot.
After Manchester United’s 3-0 thumping of Athletic Bilbao, Harry Maguire has called on Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, and the other senior players to “step up” and guarantee the squad a spot in the Europa League final in Thursday’s semi-final second leg at Old Trafford.
United is the clear favourite to return to the stadium for the final, possibly against Tottenham, who are leading Bodø/Glimt 3-1, thanks to a header from Casemiro and two goals from Bruno Fernandes at San Mamés. Maguire was questioned about the biggest danger to United’s advancement.
“Everyone will say it’s [done], and so you’re going into the game thinking the tie’s over,” he said. “Every scenario can happen in a game. We know that they could score first but we’ve got to remain calm. We’ve got a lot of senior players who need to step up in their moments. I think Cassie [Casemiro] was brilliant tonight, Bruno as well, so we have senior players who need to handle these moments really well.”
Despite a difficult domestic campaign that has left them in 14th place, United is the only team in European club competitions that has not lost. This, according to Maguire, was partly caused by the team failing to negotiate the changeover between Ruben Amorim’s entrance and Erik ten Hag’s dismissal in late October.
“It’s been a bit of a mess in the middle of the season,” the defender said. “The transition period we didn’t handle well enough, us players. We didn’t take the responsibility well enough from moving manager to manager and we took too long embedding new ideas.
“It’s been a difficult, disappointing season but of course football is about memories, it’s about creating memories, it’s about winning trophies and we have a great opportunity to win a trophy.”
Maguire received praise on social media for his surprising contribution, with some joking that he ought to be called “Harrydinho.” “On social media, I always have nicknames,” he remarked. “I’m content with that one; it will suffice.”
Amad Diallo made his first appearance since February 7th due to an ankle injury, coming on as a substitution in the 84th minute.
Amorim said: “It was really tough on us [to lose him] because in that moment he was the player that created all the situations. But now he is returning. You can feel that he is not so explosive at the moment but he is a player who is left-footed and we don’t have many [forward] players like that. So it is massive for us.”