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United treble winner Wes Brown says he expects Victor Lindelof not to stay at Manchester United beyond the end of this season, with Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez the preferred centre back pairing at the club.
In an exclusive interview with The Peoples Person on behalf of SportsCasting, Brown said he does not expect manager Erik ten Hag to rotate the centre backs much this season.
“You can see the pairing the manager’s gone for, which is De Ligt and Martinez,” he said.
“He’ll try and keep that throughout the season now, unless there’s injuries or someone rested here and there.
“I think Maguire’s done excellent when he’s come in. I think everyone can see that, he’s handled the bad patch he’s been through, he got a lot of bad press, he took that in his stride.
“And Lindelof’s been unfortunate, Maguire’s come in before him and played well, so he’ll probably be the next one you want to pick [to leave].
Both Maguire and Lindelof are in the last year of their contracts, although United have an optional extra year they could trigger to keep the England man at Old Trafford. But Brown went on to say he thinks the Swede will choose to leave United at the end of the season, even if he is offered a new deal.
“I think it comes to the stage when two players don’t play for so long, it’s whether they want to keep doing what they’re doing. Because Lindelof will want to keep playing and if he sees that the manager’s not really picking him or Maguire’s playing before him, at the end of the season, he’ll probably make a decision to leave anyway.
“It’s a tough shout. There’s still a lot of games this season. When you’re not playing you do not wish anyone to be injured, but as we’ve seen last season, Maguire played a lot of games because of that exact thing.
“It’s crazy, it can go just like that and you can be on the pitch and they’ll still be thinking they still have a chance if at some point that does happen.
“You’ll see through the season which one the manager will pick in front of the other one and at the moment that’s probably Maguire.”
With new signing Leny Yoro also set to compete for a place once he recovers from surgery on his foot, it will be interesting to see whether even Maguire gets enough games this season. If he doesn’t, he too could be looking for pastures new.
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