Gary Neville believes England manager Gareth Southgate will be considering leaving Manchester United captain Harry Maguire out of his preferred starting line-up at the World Cup in Qatar.
Maguire, who played a key role in helping England reach the semi-finals of the World Cup a little over four years ago, has seen his career fall off a cliff over the past 12 months, certainly at club level. He has fallen out-of-favour at Old Trafford under Erik ten Hag, starting just two of United's first seven Premier League matches this season.
Despite limited opportunities at United so far this term, Maguire was included in Southgate's most recent squad, starting the two Nations League fixtures with Italy and Germany at the end of last month. Despite the latter continuing to defend the former Leicester City man, Maguire was guilty of committing two costly errors in the 3-3 thriller with Germany at Wembley, leaving many supporters scathing at his inclusion in the squad.
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Maguire, who missed Sunday's 6-3 defeat to City through injury, is widely predicted to be included in Southgate's World Cup squad, such is the role he has played for England at recent tournaments. However, former Reds right-back Neville believes he could be at risk of being left out of the Three Lions boss' strongest team.
"I think it's got to the point now where the injury he's got, the form... I think Gareth Southgate will be seriously thinking of leaving him out of the team now just to protect him," Neville told Sky Sports. "He's making mistakes and nothing is going his way. You can't find your form in a World Cup - particularly this one. There's no warm-up games, there's no build up.
"Fulham play Manchester United on the Sunday and a week later, you're expected to be in form for the World Cup. He might not have played for three or four weeks on top of the weeks he's not played already for United. It's getting to that point where I think Southgate may be thinking that he has to bring in other centre-backs."
Maguire, who scored a penalty in England's shoot-out defeat to Italy in the final of the European Championship last year, has been constantly criticised in recent months, particularly on social media. For Neville, Maguire could benefit from possibly speaking to a psychologist.
Neville continued: "Harry has not been in a good place. You watched him a week ago for England and it's tough for him at the moment. Really tough, and there's been a lot of scrutiny on him. England just don't have the pool of centre-backs and I think he has got a lot of credit in the bank from his performances for England over the last few years.
"All of them are going to have bad moments and these things happen. You need perspective and coping mechanisms. They worked for me but I'm not saying it will help for everybody but I think Harry is at that stage where he needs to seek some solace away from football. Speaking to your team-mates and your coaches about these types of things isn't easy."
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