Roy Keane suggests that Harry Maguire is inhibiting his Manchester United colleagues from effectively pressing their opponents.
Last Saturday, United’s defensive vulnerabilities were once again laid bare as Erik ten Hag’s team suffered a 2-1 defeat at home to Fulham.
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Jamie Carragher, a former Liverpool defender, subsequently labeled United’s tactics as ‘impossible’ to execute, highlighting the difficulty in pressing opposition defenses when playing with a deep defensive line under Ten Hag.
Former United captain Keane asserts that Ten Hag’s squad appears ‘terrified’ to advance up the pitch because of Maguire’s perceived lack of speed in defense.
‘They aren’t pressing up,’ Keane said on The Overlap’s Stick to Football show.
‘I don’t want to be just pinning it on [Harry] Maguire, but there’s always that worry with Maguire coming up and squeezing the pitch, like all the other top teams are doing.
‘There’s that worry with him all the time – that’s where there is gaps. They are frightened to death to come all the way up because they’re thinking, ‘anything over the top, he’d be in trouble’.
Keane also claims Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford are failing to lead Man United’s press in attack.
‘Manchester United haven’t got the players to [press],’ Keane said. ‘Fernandes is not going to do it. Rashford won’t do it.
‘They might do it for five or ten minutes, so if you’ve got a team that’s not going to press – we’re talking about leopards and spots.
‘Man United are never really going to be good at that pressing side of it.’
