Harry Maguire will NOT lift the Carabao Cup alone today if Manchester United beat Newcastle at Wembley.
Although Maguire is officially United captain, he has lost his starting place, with Bruno Fernandes wearing the armband when the England defender is not playing. Fernandes is set to captain United in today’s final, with Maguire among the substitutes as boss Erik ten Hag bids to win his first trophy in his debut season in charge.
But Maguire is understood to have planned to lift the trophy jointly with Fernandes if United win - to honour the fact the Portuguese star has captained the team more than him this season and featured more in the run to the final.
Fernandes has started all five of United’s games in the Carabao Cup en route to the final, while Maguire has started just two and came on as a late substitute in the 2-0 semi-final second-leg win over Nottingham Forest.
United are bidding to end a six-year wait for a trophy, their worst run without silverware for four decades, by beating Eddie Howe’s side today. The last trophy United won was the 2017 Europa League under former boss Jose Mourinho.
They reached the 2018 FA Cup final under Mourinho, but lost to Chelsea, and were beaten in a penalty shootout by Villarreal in the 2021 Europa League final, under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
"As you have seen, we take every game serious. We take every [competition] serious so now we have progress to a final and it’s great to play in a final. But if you play, you want to win," Ten Hag said in his pre-match press conference.
“It's a great opportunity to get the silverware in and it's all about that. I think it's about glory and honour in football. We deserved to play the final and now we have a great opportunity to win the cup so we have to put everything in to get that cup to Manchester.”
Asked if this could start a sustained period of success under his stewardship, he added: "Yeah, but focus on [the next game]. That is the only thing that we can do at this moment [win the Carabao Cup]. After it, we will look further on what it means.
"Either we win them and that's good, that can have the impact you mentioned, but if you don't win them [we will have] more opportunities and we have to carry on the process because we are still in a good direction. We can't be dependent on one game. But it's obvious we want to win the cup."
