Harry Maguire launches fierce defence of Luke Shaw after Roy Keane’s sharp criticism, ‘There’s a reason…’

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Roy Keane recently took Luke Shaw to the cleaners after his Manchester derby display, and teammate Harry Maguire has now come out fighting for the left-back.

Luke Shaw’s Manchester derby performance was one to forget, as he was responsible, in some capacity, for all three goals.

Roy Keane had sharp words to say about the player after the game, going on about how he has escaped multiple purges of the squad, only in much stronger terminology!

Luke Shaw took it on the chin and even put in a much-improved display against Chelsea, but Harry Maguire felt it perfectly valid to defend his teammate’s honour.

Harry Maguire’s fierce defence of Luke Shaw

When it comes to being a model teammate, there aren’t many players in the Man Utd squad who are better at it than Maguire.

It’s why he has been valued so much by every manager he has played under, recently earning Ruben Amorim’s appreciation for his act before the Chelsea game.

He can now add Shaw to the list of people who will be grateful to him after the centre-back hit back at Shaw’s critics with a sharp retort.

Speaking to the official Man Utd website, he said: “You don’t play at this club 250 or 300 times if you’re first and foremost not a good player. Luke’s an excellent footballer, and every manager that comes in, he gets questioned a lot. That’s what happens at this club.

“Every manager that comes in plays Luke, and there’s a reason why they play Luke, because he’s an excellent footballer, always has been and always will be.”

Ruben Amorim’s cultural reset is showing itself

Ruben Amorim generally isn’t one to engage in a back-and-forth with pundits over their opinions, but he’d be delighted to hear Maguire.

The Man Utd manager has taken great pains with utter ruthlessness to create a unified dressing room with no personal or ulterior motives.

The squad looks willing to sacrifice and go the extra mile for each other, and Maguire’s defence of Shaw only reinforces that notion.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s greatest teams were built on this siege mentality, where it was “us against the world”, regardless of who the “enemy” was.

In this case, Keane has become the unifying source around which Maguire has rallied for Shaw. The actual content of his argument is irrelevant because the intention is exactly what Amorim must be looking for.