Manchester United captain Harry Maguire has spoken of his determination to repay fans following last weekend’s 5-0 humiliation against Liverpool and insists lessons have been learned.
United put in a shocking performance against a rampant Liverpool and were 4-0 down at half-time. Defensively, the team were all over the place and plenty of supporters were filmed leaving Old Trafford while the game was still going on.
Others, however, did stay until the end, and Maguire insists the players are aware of letting fans down, as well as themselves, the manager and the coaching staff.
“We have amazing fans, the support that they give us in the stadium, home and away, win, lose or draw is amazing,” he told ManUtd.com.
“They sing, they’re the loudest fans and they show their support and their appreciation. On the other hand it makes me feel disappointed because we let them down.
“As players we let the management down, we let the staff down and we let the club down, but most importantly we let the fans down. We know we’ve got to improve and I can assure you we’re doing everything we can and giving everything day in, day out to make sure that we improve on these performances, and I’m sure we’ll come through this difficult period and kick on again.”
One of the biggest criticisms of United’s performance against Liverpool was the apparent failure to learn from previous games against Leicester and Atalanta in the days beforehand.
Ex-United midfielder Paul Scholes even commented after the 3-2 comeback against Atalanta that United would badly struggle against Liverpool if they performed the same way again.
“Go and do that against Liverpool on Sunday, see what happens,” was his sarcastically and blunt warning on BT Sport, which turned into a hauntingly accurate prediction.
Going into Saturday’s crucial clash with Tottenham, Maguire is adamant there won’t just be more of the same and that things have been adapted accordingly.
“It’s been a tough week obviously, you can’t just brush these things aside…We’ve obviously had big discussions, we’ve analysed the game and the goals and looked at how we can do better and improve,” the England international explained.
“We know as a group of players we need to make sure we’re together and we’re positive. It’s a tough one to move on from but we need to move on. There are lots of games to play in the Premier League, we’re in a strong position in the group in the Champions League and we’re still early on in the season. And it’s a season in which we know we can still achieve things.”
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Source : 90min