Maguire urges United’s senior players to ‘step up’ and seal Europa League final spot

Harry Maguire has urged Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes and Manchester United’s other senior players to “step up” and ensure the team seal a Europa League final berth in Thursday’s semi-final second leg at Old Trafford after their 3-0 dismantling of Athletic Bilbao.

A Casemiro header and two Bruno Fernandes goals at San Mamés make United firm favourites to return to the stadium for the final, potentially against Tottenham, who are 3-1 up against Bodø/Glimt. Maguire was asked what the greatest threat was to United’s progress.

“Everyone will say it’s [done], and so you’re going into the game thinking the tie’s over,” he said. “Every scenario can happen in a game. We know that they could score first but we’ve got to remain calm. We’ve got a lot of senior players who need to step up in their moments. I think Cassie [Casemiro] was brilliant tonight, Bruno as well, so we have senior players who need to handle these moments really well.”

United are the only undefeated side in European club competitions despite a troubled domestic campaign that has them 14th. Maguire said this was due, in part, to the squad not negotiating the transition between Erik ten Hag’s sacking in late October and Ruben Amorim’s arrival.

“It’s been a bit of a mess in the middle of the season,” the defender said. “The transition period we didn’t handle well enough, us players. We didn’t take the responsibility well enough from moving manager to manager and we took too long embedding new ideas.

“It’s been a difficult, disappointing season but of course football is about memories, it’s about creating memories, it’s about winning trophies and we have a great opportunity to win a trophy.”

1:31 Ruben Amorim says Athletic Bilbao win is ‘best result’ of his time in charge – video

Maguire’s cross led to Casemiro’s header, after the centre-back had tricked the left-back Mikel Jauregizar. “Dribbling has always been an attribute of mine,” he said. “I did it a lot more when I was younger – dribbling the ball up the pitch out of defence and stepping into midfield. It was a bit strange finding myself on the right-wing. I managed to put a good ball in the box and we had a lot of bodies in the box so they must have trusted me to get the ball in.”

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Maguire’s contribution caused him to be lauded on social media, with some joking he should be called “Harrydinho”. “I’ve always got nicknames on social media,” he said. “I’m happy with that one – that’ll do.”

Amad Diallo entered as an 84th-minute replacement for a first appearance since 7 February after an ankle injury. Amorim said: “It was really tough on us [to lose him] because in that moment he was the player that created all the situations. But now he is returning. You can feel that he is not so explosive at the moment but he is a player who is left-footed and we don’t have many [forward] players like that. So it is massive for us.”

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