Harry Maguire: It’s been a difficult couple of days

Manchester United players and coaches have experienced an eventful 48 hours, which saw the club deciding to part ways with the manager. Following the departure of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer from his role, Michael Carrick will be in charge of the game against Villarreal. If the Red Devils win the encounter at Estadio La Ceramica, qualification from Champions League Group F will be assured with one game still to spare. The concluding home game for United will be against Young Boys. Speaking about the recent developments, captain Harry Maguire told the club media, “Yes, it’s been a difficult couple of days for the lads, really emotional.” 

“It’s never nice to see a manager lose his job, especially someone who’s been so good to a lot of players here and a lot of members of staff, and the values that he has, and the journey that we’ve been on together over the last two or three years. Yesterday was a tough day for everyone, a really emotional day, saying obviously goodbyes but I’m sure we’ll stay in touch. 

“Ole spoke to the group of lads and he’s going to be there supporting us, wanting us to do well, and that shows his values and what he thinks of this club. Obviously he’s a legend of the club and as a group of lads, we’re disappointed that we couldn’t do enough to improve the performances and the results. Ultimately now, we’ve got to look forward now to a game against Villarreal that’s a really important game in our season.”

I’ve had a great relationship with him: Maguire on Ole

Notably, Maguire was signed by Manchester United during Solskjaer’s reign from Leicester City. Opening up about Ole, he said, “Yes of course, he’s been brilliant with me. He brought me to the club, made me captain, which is obviously a huge honour, a huge privilege, and I’ve had a great relationship with him over the last two or three years. We’ve had some great times. We’ve had ups, we’ve had downs but we’ve stuck together and we’ve moved forward.” 

“In the last two months, the progression hasn’t been there. We’ve stopped performing well enough individually so players obviously take huge responsibility. We feel we take the responsibility as much as the manager but it’s football and that’s what happens. Yeah, we’re so disappointed that we couldn’t do enough to change the results because the lads wanted to and have so much respect for him.”

Speaking about the approach for the Villarreal match, the defender said, “We spoke yesterday about how tough the day was. And today we’ve come in with the mindset that it’s minus one, it’s time to prepare for a big game in our season, Villarreal. We know it’s a big game tomorrow so it’s time to prepare, it’s time to focus, it’s time to change that mindset, to make sure that come tomorrow we put our words into actions and we go out there and we fight for this club and we fight for the result that we need for the season to reach our goals.”

‘Every game that we play for this club is the same’

A win on Tuesday will help Manchester United qualify from the group and a draw will still put them in a very strong position to progress through. “We’re going to go into the game trying to win the football match. Every game that we play for this club is the same. We go into it trying to win the football match. I’ve spoke about us in recent months not doing that well enough, we haven’t performed well enough individually or collectively as a group,” he added. 

“Everyone holds responsibility for that but now we’ve got to look forward, we’ve got to come together as a group and have the mindset and mentality to make sure that we’re together and we push together, and we produce a performance for the club, for the fans, and for ourselves.”