By the end, the Manchester United supporters were customising a chant, one they like to deliver with the arrogance of winners. “You’ve seen United, now go off home,” – albeit with a different verb – was adjusted to incorporate Harry Maguire’s name. Their Nottingham Forest counterparts had indeed seen Maguire: “Leicester reject” echoed around the City Ground, and Leicester would probably like more rejects if they could pocket £80 million for each of them.
But the taunts turned into a triumph of sorts. Maguire could be used to insult the Forest fans but United have won each of the last 11 games he has started. That is not to say they have won because he was starting: he was abject for the first half-hour in Nottingham, decent thereafter. A terrible beginning could have cost United and, when he was booked for wrestling the quicker Taiwo Awoniyi to the ground, leaving him with 87 minutes to survive on a yellow card, there was the chance that sights of Maguire could have been confined to a relatively short period of time.
