At Hampden Park on Tuesday night, England head coach Gareth Southgate witnessed his team defeat Scotland 3-1 in convincing fashion.
The under-fire central defender, Harry Maguire’s own goal was the only negative, and as usual, analysts weighed in on the defender’s performance to which Southgate termed some of the criticism a “joke”.
“There has been ridiculous treatment of him for a long period of time – It’s a joke. I’ve never known a player treated the way he is by our own pundits. It’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen,” Southgate said
“Every time he goes on the field the resilience he shows, the balls he shows, is absolutely incredible. We’re all with him, our fans were brilliant with him tonight.”
Maguire’s own goal comes at dreadful time for the defender given his recent poor form that has seen his minutes on the pitch with Manchester United narrow down this season. He has featured in less than 45 minutes in the Club’s four games thus far.
Before the season began, His captain’s armband was taken away from him by manager Erik Ten Hag and was allowed to hold talks with West Ham over a prospective move away from Old Trafford.
But the former Leicester defender elected to stay at United and he is now fifth in the pecking order- behind Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, Victor Lindelof and Jonny Evans ( who was brought in on deadline day on free transfer).
