Ralf Rangnick has defended under-fire captain Harry Maguire ahead of Manchester United’s Premier League clash with Southampton tomorrow.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference ahead of the game, the interim manager responded to a question about Maguire’s recent poor form.
‘I think he had an outstanding game against West Ham, like all the rest of our back line,’ Rangnick said.
‘Against Middlesbrough we didn’t give away that many chances to the other team.
‘Against Burnley, yes, we could have defended those transitional moments better than we did.
‘But in the end it was like a negative chain reaction, like most goals that teams concede.
‘We had a brilliant counter-attack ourselves, the first pass wasn’t the best one, but even then it was a two-v-two or three-v-three situation and we should have got more out of that.
‘And then our next defence was not good, we shouldn’t have allowed this counter-attack to happen.
‘We were not marking the connecting players well enough and high enough, and also at the end we didn’t defend it well enough.
‘When Weghorst got the ball we were two versus one,it was Harry and Scotty against him, and of course we shouldn’t allow him to go through that in that very moment.
‘Harry was injured. He had a two, two and a half weeks’ injury and then came back and had a very good game against West Ham.’
The boss concluded by hinting that Maguire will keep his place in the side, saying ‘I’m pretty sure he can perform at the same kind of level tomorrow against Southampton.’