It appears increasingly unlikely that Harry Maguire will be at Manchester United next season, leaving Erik ten Hag with a decision to make over naming a new club captain.
Maguire was given the armband by Ole Gunnar Solskjær in January 2020, replacing Ashley Young who signed for Inter Milan. But the England defender is no longer a first-choice centre-back at Old Trafford under Ten Hag, who prefers a pairing of Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane.
Injuries to Martinez and Varane have seen Maguire parachuted back into the first-team picture and he has started United’s last four matches in all competitions, including the 3-0 defeat to Sevilla which knocked United out of the Europa League at the quarter-final stage.
Maguire made a costly mistake for Sevilla’s opening goal as the La Liga side recorded a 5-2 win on aggregate, failing to spot three on-rushing opposition players as he received the ball from David de Gea and sliding a weak pass into their path, allowing Youssef En-Nesyri to score.
It was a moment emblematic of Maguire’s diminishing status at United - he is a reliable, regular pick for Gareth Southgate and England but everything he touches at club level seems to go wrong. The 30-year-old was unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when scoring a humiliating late own goal when Sevilla fought back from 2-0 at Old Trafford last week.
Ten Hag didn’t blame Maguire for the mistake in his post-match press conference on Thursday, but the writing is on the wall for the former Leicester City man, who cost United £80million in 2019.
As well as naming Maguire as captain, former United boss Solskjær also identified a player who could take on the role in the future. Axel Tuanzebe was the club’s youngest skipper in over 30 years when he was given the armband for a Carabao Cup tie against Rochdale.
Speaking after handing Tuanzebe the honour in 2019, Solskjaer told talkSPORT: “Axel is a captain in the making, he's a leader. Why not give it to young kids? How does he handle it? He was absolutely fine, he enjoyed it. It’s just a way of telling him that we trust him.”
Maguire agreed that Tuanzebe was a natural leader and predicted big things from the defender in the future. Maguire told the UTD Podcast: “We have a lot of leaders in the dressing room, a lot of senior pros. And you don’t have to be a senior pro to be a leader.
“Axel is a leader, in the ways that he works and speaks in the dressing room. And he’s only a young boy, he’s still learning his trade. I’m sure he’ll go on to have an unbelievable career.”
But it hasn’t worked out that way for Tuanzebe, who hasn’t appeared in a competitive match for United in two years. He was sent out on loan instead - first by Solskjaer, then by subsequent United managers Ralf Rangnick and Ten Hag.
The 25-year-old currently plays for Stoke City in the Championship having previously had temporary spells at Napoli and a second stint at Aston Villa. Those loan moves came after Tuanzebe signed a new two-year contract with the Red Devils in 2021.
United have an option to extend Tuanzebe’s deal by an extra year but the former England under-21 international seems destined for the exit door at Old Trafford. The Manchester Evening News report he is set to leave United on a free transfer this summer.
With Maguire likely to be out of the picture - and Solskajer’s Tuanzebe’s prophecy not coming true - Ten Hag will have to select a new United captain ahead of next season. Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro appear to be the two obvious candidates as the Dutch manager continues his rebuild.
