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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Richard Cusack

Manchester United captain Harry Maguire breaks John Terry's England record

Harry Maguire's time away with England during the international break has brought some much-needed joy to the Manchester United captain.

Maguire has been maligned for his performances for United in recent weeks, coming back from a calf injury for the 4-2 defeat to old side Leicester City.

He played in the 5-0 reverse to Liverpool the week after and also in the 2-0 defeat to Manchester City in the most recent game before the international break.

Maguire has found form with England, though, scoring in World Cup qualifying matches against Albania on Friday and San Marino on Monday.

The 28-year-old, perhaps unwisely, put his fingers to his ears in celebrating the goal against Albania but there was a more muted celebration in San Marino.

That goal put him above John Terry in the all-time list of goalscoring England centre-backs, with Maguire now netting seven times, one more than the Chelsea legend.

United will be hoping that Maguire has had some confidence restored by his goalscoring feats with the centre-back set to play against Watford on Saturday.

Maguire's celebration against Albania brought him criticism, notably from United legend Roy Keane who called the action 'embarrassing'.

"I think he puts his hands to his ears like he's shut the critics up, but I think that's embarrassing," Keane said.

Maguire responded, insisting that there was no ulterior motive behind it.

"It was a great ball from Reece (James)," Maguire said. We'd worked on it, we knew the areas we could exploit and credit to all the staff for doing that.

"I managed to direct the header into the far post and I think when you play these games, the first goal is crucial and it comes quite a lot from set-plays. We knew we'd get a lot of set-plays and we had to be clinical with them.

"The celebration was a knee slide, it just came naturally to me. It's an amazing feeling to score for my country."

What did you make of Maguire's international break? Have your say in the comments section...

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