Harry Maguire, one of Manchester United’s most chastised players, has reflected on his performance and England’s World Cup loss.
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The defender was speaking in an interview following England’s elimination from the World Cup by reigning champions France. According to Maguire, the outcome wounded him a lot because there was a lot of hope in the English camp.
He stated;
The hardest thing to take, which is why I’m the most disappointed I’ve been, is that we believed we would win the tournament. That is not arrogant. It is the first tournament I’ve come to where the group of players getting to a quarter-final, going through and losing in a semi-final or a final would not have felt good enough for us. It is disappointing and we are hurt. When you go into big games, you go with the mindset that you look after the performance. You look after the performance and then hopefully the result looks after itself. But sometimes it doesn’t. We were the better team, we created the most chances, we had more pressure, we dominated the ball. But that’s football, especially tournament football. It’s about big moments at big times. We didn’t take ours, they took theirs.
He also spoke about his performance at the competition despite all the criticism he got from supporters of the Three Lions.
I’ve played every game and I’m proud of my mentality to prove to myself again – I don’t need to prove to others – but at the moment, I don’t look at myself, I look at the team and every time I put this shirt on, I want the team to do well. Listen I’d have much preferred to have had a bad game against France and gone through.
Manchester United supporters will wait to see if Erik Ten Hag can bring out the best from Maguire just as Gareth Southgate did when the league resumes.