How do you solve a problem like Maguire?
While it easily sounds like it could be a leading number in Manchester United: The Musical, the question has been lingering for the last few months regarding the future of their central defender Harry Maguire.
For now, at least, it looks as if he will be staying put in the final week of the summer window despite the club's best efforts to shift their 30-year-old former captain. Since moving to Old Trafford from Leicester City in a deal thought to be worth £80million ($100.8m in today's currency) four years ago, the now 57-cap England international's career has tracked through the stages of record signing, ever-present captain, under-fire star to its current status: bit-part player fighting for his future.
Just when it looked like a £30million move to West Ham United earlier this window would be the solution to a sorry saga that has done little for the player's wellbeing or the health of manager Erik ten Hag's squad, came a spanner in the works. Maguire, despite fans willingly ushering him towards the exit, actually did not want to leave. And with the collapse of that deal, it looks like the 30-year-old could carry on at United past Friday's deadline on a contract that doesn't expire until the end of the 2024-25 season.
Maguire is far from alone in the “not wanted where he is but not willing to leave” category of players, presenting a headache for clubs who are quite used to picking up and discarding talent as it suits them.
At Chelsea, Romelu Lukaku's summer has been one long-running transfer saga. First, the club wanted him gone but the 30-year-old striker wanted to stay. Now Lukaku is said to want to leave but finding a club to take him has proven difficult, with loan options now being explored.
Meanwhile, Tottenham's Eric Dier has been left out of new head coach Ange Postecoglou's squad in recent weeks — initially as he returned from injury — and has been linked with a move across London to Fulham, among others, although the 29-year-old is said to be determined to work his way back into Postecoglou's plans as he enters the final nine months of his contract.
In the era of mounting social media pressure from fans on players, little time is given to the personal reasons why they might reject a move away from their current club. This could be as simple as not wanting to join their proposed new employers — Frenkie de Jong's staunch resistance to swapping Barcelona for Manchester United this time last year is a prime example — or a matter of being forced to accept a wage reduction, as would have been required in the Maguire/West Ham case.
Other factors, such as uprooting their settled family and worries over future job security, are also scarcely given a thought at the top level of football.
And although the massive wages in the Premier League go some way to helping ease those factors, they are still valid concerns for players. Football is an industry like few others, where its workers are beholden to being wanted or unwanted during a transfer window and are expected to show one last act of loyalty to their employer by willingly accepting a move — even if it does not suit them.
Sometimes, as with Maguire or Leicester counterpart Jannik Vestergaard, players truly believe they can prove their worth where they are and rejuvenate their career — although it will take some transformation for that to be true in at least one of those examples.
Vestergaard looks to have more of a chance than Maguire.
He has had two opportunities to leave the King Power Stadium since signing from Southampton in a £15million deal in August 2021 but has played every minute of the four Championship games so far this season, helping new manager Enzo Maresca's side to the top of the table with a maximum 12 points.
Now 31, the Denmark international was recruited, and subsequently frozen out, by the club's previous manager Brendan Rodgers.
In an unauthorised interview — according to Rodgers — Vestergaard told Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet in March this year: “I really felt wanted by Brendan Rodgers. While I was at Southampton, he really convinced me that I should switch to Leicester.
“Brendan Rodgers and the club knew exactly which player they were buying with both my strengths and weaknesses, and it's hard to understand that from one moment to the next I'm suddenly unusable. It feels strange, I must admit.”
Vestergaard's comments resulted in his exile from first-team training as Rodgers quipped he “had to make sure I wasn't talking to his twin brother for the last 14 to 15 months” about the defender's omission from the squad. For now, Vestergaard remains on the books, and his contract runs to next summer.
Harry Arter is another instance.
He continues to be a Nottingham Forest player despite their best attempts to move him on following their promotion to the Premier League 15 months ago. The now 33-year-old midfielder has played just 14 times for Forest since joining from Bournemouth in September 2020, and was sent on loan to Charlton Athletic and Notts County in the season they went up via the Championship play-offs.
Arter described his time at Forest as “disappointing” when he joined non-League Notts on loan, but a promotion clause in his Forest contract saw his salary rise to a reported £40,000 a week with their return to the Premier League, which has made finding him a move away from the City Ground difficult.
He remains under contract until 2024, and despite not having played a senior game for Forest since January 2021 looks set to see that out.
Waiting out your deal when you aren't getting games at a club is not always a popular decision, but is to be respected given how easily a player can lose value. David de Gea's new-contract talks with Manchester United earlier this summer — and his later exit as a free agent — is evidence enough of that.
In the same vein, former Chelsea full-back Winston Bogarde is one of the most famous cases of a player choosing to wait for his contract to end as he made a mere nine Premier League appearances in a four-year spell at Stamford Bridge from 2000 to 2004, despite the club's best efforts to shift him off the wage bill. The Dutchman was much maligned for his decision not to move on, but gave his side of the story in his autobiography, saying: “Why should I throw €15million away when it is already mine?.
“At the moment I signed, it was in fact my money, my contract. Both sides agreed wholeheartedly. I could go elsewhere to play for less, but you have to understand my history to understand (that) I would never do that. I used to be poor as a kid (and) did not have anything to spend or something to play with.
“This world is about money, so when you are offered those millions, you take them.”
Top marks to Bogarde for honesty — and food for thought for Chelsea as they hand eight-year deals to players they are signing these days.