“I can deal with it,” Harry Maguire said. “We knew it would be hostile and in the second half I got most of it. I am happy to go with that, don’t worry about that.” And yet only the hardest heart did not worry for a footballer who has endured so much over the past two seasons and now finds himself buried under an avalanche of mockery at the beginning of a third.
The questions for Maguire were numerous after what he went through in England’s 3-1 win against Scotland at Hampden Park on Tuesday night, a good result for the team but a harrowing ordeal for him. On as a half-time substitute, the Manchester United defender was ridiculed without mercy by the Scotland support whenever he got the ball, and the grisly nadir came when he stretched to divert a low cross into his own net for 2-1. Even the stadium announcer piled in, bellowing that the Scotland goal was an own goal … “by Harry Maguire!”
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