Maguire is everything Utd wanted in a captain, so his arrest has come as a shock

When Manchester United named Harry Maguire as their new captain in January, he was the standout candidate for the job.

It was one of those obvious choices. The club’s new £80 million signing had already worn the armband in place of Milan-bound Ashley Young on a number of occasions and fitted the bill.

A combative centre back in the mould of previous United skippers Steve Bruce and Nemanja Vidic, Maguire is a player who leads by example and commands the respect of his team-mates.


A senior professional at the age of 27 and an established England international. In fact, just about the last person you would expect to find themselves in the kind of mess that has landed Maguire and his mates in trouble in Mykonos.

Exactly what happened outside a Fabrika bar in the early hours of the morning will no doubt emerge in time, although friends of the player insisted on Friday night that the whole episode is ‘out of character’.

It would be inappropriate at this point to judge Maguire or the two other men who were arrested after the alleged fracas and spent the rest of the night in a police cell.


But there is nothing in Maguire’s past, on or off the pitch, to suggest he is the kind of person who would typically be involved in this kind of incident.

He has been pictured with fiancee Fern Hawkins, the mother of his two young children, on the Greek island in recent days and all seemed well on the trip with family and friends.


Premier League footballers, though, are some of the most recognisable people on the planet and, as such, it’s a little surprising that Maguire didn’t choose somewhere quieter than Mykonos to wind down at the end of a season that lasted more than a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

He played 55 games for United and another six for England — a total of 5,502 minutes, more than any other player in Europe.


There is only a short two-week window for a holiday before the United players are back in training for the new campaign, not to mention the added demands of England’s opening Nations League games at the start of another long season that ends with the European Championship.


It is an unprecedented time in football but, if anything, the absence of fans these past few months has given those of us with access to United games even greater insight into Maguire’s leadership skills in empty stadiums where every shout and instruction can be heard.

When United needed an ambassadorial figure to face the media in Belgrade before they faced Partizan in October amid fears of more trouble just 10 days after Maguire had witnessed the horrible racist abuse aimed at England players in Bulgaria, they turned to him.


Maguire — the most expensive English footballer of all time — spoke with conviction and authority at the Partizan Stadium that night, promising to take the ultimate action and lead his players off the pitch if they faced abuse, even though he was still three months away from formally being appointed as club captain.

Those close to Maguire admit that he was surprised to be handed the armband by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer so early in his United career having joined from Leicester last summer.

England boss Gareth Southgate is also said to be a big fan. Friends describe his goal against Sweden in the quarter-finals of the 2018 World Cup as life-changing and point out that he turned down commercial opportunities to focus on his career.


When Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson came up with #playerstogether campaign to raise money for the NHS, Maguire was the first one he called.

During lockdown, he also set up his own initiative to provide food boxes for the elderly and vulnerable in the Mosborough area of Sheffield where he grew up.



Friends talk about a sensible individual who is the antithesis of a hot head. Maguire has only been sent off four times in his senior career — once since April 2013.

His disciplinary record at United is good, save for an incident against Chelsea in February that could well have brought a red card when he planted his studs in Michy Batshuayi’s groin.

All of which will count for very little if Maguire is found to be at fault for the events that unfolded in Mykonos.