Ralf Rangnick is under pressure to drop Harry Maguire over the Manchester United skipper's shocking loss of form.
Maguire has had a season to forget and his miserable campaign continued with an error-strewn display in United's 1-1 draw at Burnley on Tuesday.
The defender was culpable for Burnley's equaliser, getting himself out of position and over-committing to allow Wout Weghorst to set up fellow striker Jay Rodriguez for the leveller.
Maguire was also lucky not to be shown a red card 15 minutes later as, again out of position, he had no option but to haul back Rodriguez as the forward set off towards the United goal.
Whether United interim boss Rangnick has the courage to drop Maguire remains to be seen, but the 28-year-old certainly does not deserve to keep his place on current form.
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Rangnick does not have a wealth of world-class central defensive options at his disposal, but Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly and Phil Jones must be wondering what they must do to dislodge Maguire.
Former United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was accused of being too loyal to players, even when they were playing poorly, and Rangnick must ensure he does not have the same charge levelled at him.
Ex-United defender Rio Ferdinand said Maguire was simply not showing the consistency of performance expected of a defender who cost £80million from Leicester in 2019.
“There hasn’t been the consistency of a player you’d expect of that stature,” said Ferdinand.
"Behind closed doors he will take responsibility for that. He doesn’t need to come out and go crazy, and he’ll iron it out.
“The challenge he made just over the halfway line, he’s lucky to stay on the pitch, because I feel the striker is running in on goal.
“It’s a performance he’ll like to erase and get into the next game as quickly as possible. But these things happen.
"First half, he looked assured, him and Raphael Varane very assured as a partnership. They were the dominating team but in the second half the team didn’t come out.
"You can make it easy by doing the basics right, they didn’t do that, they gave the ball away, the intensity wasn’t there and they got overrun five to 10 minutes into the second half.
“The goal was poor on Harry’s part. This season, you’ve seen that. I’m not sure if that’s a hangover from the Euros, physically and mentally.”
Maguire did not address his own culpability post-match, but acknowledged United should have been able to absorb Burnley's pressure without allowing them to score.
“We’ve got to not concede a goal at that moment,” said Maguire. “It happened against Middlesbrough as well.
“We conceded a goal where they had their little spell of pressure.
“We created enough chances in the first-half alone to win the match and we’ve got to be more clinical. It’s definitely two points dropped.”
