HARRY MAGUIRE has suffered sleepless nights after letting manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer down.
The Manchester United captain has spoken about the emotional impact last weekend’s 5-0 drubbing at home to Liverpool has had.
It has brought huge pressure down on manager Solskjaer whose job is now hanging by a thread after a run of one point from four League games.
And Red Devils captain Maguire said: “When you look back at the result and the performance it was embarrassing. Nowhere near good enough for this club.
“It’s been a tough week. I’m not going to say we’ve moved on easily. It’s one of the lowest I’m sure all the players have felt in their career.
“You go home and you don’t sleep much, you’ve got thoughts running through your head; ‘If only I did this or this’.
“If I’m being honest I went home and I just looked at myself and what I can do better and take full responsibility on my shoulders.
“I hope every player in the dressing room is looking at themselves, taking full responsibility on their shoulders and not pointing the finger and blaming anyone else. You look at yourself first and foremost when you have a result like this and a period like this.
FREE BETS: GET OVER £2,000 IN NEW CUSTOMER DEALS
“We let the manager down against Liverpool. We let the fans down, the club down, us as players. So we have to take huge responsibility for that. Do we owe him a performance? Of course we do.”
They need to put that performance in away to Tottenham on Saturday.
But there is nothing to suggest that will happen not least given the recent run of results and the way they are leaking goals like a sieve with Maguire at the heart of the defence.
There are question marks as to whether he was rushed back too quickly following his calf injury.
He had only one training session but was picked ahead of Eric Bailly for the away game to Leicester where they lost 4-2.
They have since conceded two to Atalanta and those five against Liverpool last Sunday.
That is 11 in their last three matches as well as being 20th – the worst in the Premier League – for tackles made and duels won.
Maguire told Sky Sports: “We don’t generally look at the stats. They have a big say but I didn’t know those stats. That’s something I’m sure the staff are looking at.
“We look at the performances and the results. The performances over the past week, defensively, we know we have conceded far too many goals.
“I take a big responsibility for that. I take responsibility for my own performance but also the defensive performance as well.
“I’m the captain, I’ve been a mainstay in the defence for over two years. We’ve had some good runs but at the minute we’re not defending well enough.
“My performances haven’t been good enough and I’m looking to get back to the form I’ve shown prior to the injury in the last two seasons.
“From the start of the season we’ve conceded too many chances and we’ve been punished this week with the chances in the first half. We gave them chances and they punished us. You can’t do it against these good teams and you can’t always get away with it.
“If I could tell you why, we’d do something about it. We’re working on it, we’re analysing it. We have to improve.”
Ex-United captain Wayne Rooney accused Maguire and his team-mates of ‘unacceptable’ laziness.
Maguire replied: “When you play for this club you have got to expect that and know how to deal with the pressures of playing for Manchester United.
“You win a few games and you are spoken about as an amazing team. If you lose a few games everyone speaks about you in a bad way. That’s playing for this club.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been in this situation. It’s not the first time these lads have. We’ve now got to stick together as a group, try to move forward from the result and put on a positive performance on Saturday.
“That’s what we have to do as a group of players, stay united, show spirit and show what players we are.
“We’ve got big players at this club, big experience, big international players and now we’ve got to show that. The spirit in the group is really good and we stick together and we can move forward.
“We’ve got a big game and we need to look after the performance and make sure we give the fans something to be proud of because we know we’ve let them down this week, for sure.”
⚽ Read our Manchester United live blog for the latest news and transfer gossip from Old Trafford
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
