Manchester United coach Ole Gunnar Solksjaer has appointed £80m defender Harry Maguire as the new captain of the club following Ashley Young’s departure to Inter Milan on Friday.
Maguire, an imposing defender signed from Leicester City, has only been in the club for 6 months, but was chosen over the likes of Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Nemanja Matic, and Juan Mata.
Solskjaer praised Maguire’s commanding nature, and stressed that the England international will remain at the forefront of the club’s captaincy group.
Speaking in his press conference on Friday, Solskjaer said: ‘Harry is wearing the captain’s armband and will keep wearing it. He’s been a leader in the group, I’ve been impressed by his leadership skills, so he will continue wearing the armband.
‘He’s come in and everything about him tells me he’s a leader, he’s part of a group we’ve had that have been leading this young group, David (de Gea), Marcus (Rashford), Harry, so Harry will keep on wearing the armband.’
Solskjaer admitted that United couldn’t stand in Young’s way after he was offered a two-year deal by Inter even though the defender only had four months left on his contract.
‘To be fair, Ashley is 35 in the summer and if he gets a two-year contract somewhere I think it’s up to him to take that. We weren’t ready to offer that,’ he said.
‘He’s been a good servant, captain and won trophies, but we’ve got players coming through. Ashley’s head and mindset was on “so why not now?”.’
‘Timothy (Fosu-Mensah) is coming back.
‘He’s a right back and played for Holland as a right back aged 19, and we want him back, Diogo (Dalot) is back fit so in the full-back position we’re quite okay.’
