The easy thing for Harry Maguire to have done would have been to feel sorry for himself. The easy thing would have been to sulk. The easy thing would have been to leave Manchester United. There was an exit route to West Ham in the summer of 2023 had he wanted it and, after being stripped of the captaincy by Erik ten Hag, few could have blamed him for taking it.

But Maguire stuck around and not with the intention of sitting back and benignly accepting his fate, happily taking home £190,000-a-week even if it meant not playing much. Instead, Maguire quietly set about trying to win over Ten Hag, to prove his manager wrong, to show his critics he still had something to offer.

There were not many who covered themselves in glory during the Dutchman’s final 12 months at Old Trafford but Maguire, ironically, became one of the few players upon whom Ten Hag could rely. Injury forced him out of Ten Hag’s final three games in charge – just as it had the end of last season and the Euros with England – and it meant Ruben Amorim having to wait to see the defender in action.

But United’s new head coach seems to have resolved pretty quickly that Maguire is one of the players he can bank on and no one has better embodied the defiance and character evidenced against Liverpool, and now Arsenal, than the England centre-back.

These are very early days in the Amorim project. But United’s first two games of 2025 have, at the very least, offered a template from which they can build. Two full weeks on the training ground to prepare for those matches clearly helped but all the training in the world would have counted for little had United not shown a willingness to dig deep in the face of adversity at Anfield and the Emirates Stadium.

The challenge now will be to take that same fight, hunger and resilience into matches against Southampton, Brighton and Rangers at Old Trafford over the course of a week and Maguire is the sort on whom Amorim seems likely to lean as he tries to change the mentality.

It is one of the reasons he told the club to trigger a 12-month extension option in Maguire’s contract. In a team “starving for leaders”, as he put it, Amorim sees Maguire as one of his few leaders and the player certainly seems to be responding to the faith and trust that has been placed in him.

The veteran Uruguay centre-half Sebastian Coates, once of Liverpool, became a key pillar in Amorim’s Sporting side and the Portuguese coach appears to have earmarked a similar role for Maguire in the middle of his back three. No one is rolling their eyes in that dressing room any more when Maguire speaks, as Cristiano Ronaldo was known to do.

Strong, brave, a model of concentration and organisation

He was a towering presence against Liverpool and Arsenal. Strong, brave, a model of concentration and organisation. Even the injustices just seemed to add to his levels of motivation. Against Liverpool, he was incorrectly booked for a crunching, perfectly timed challenge just outside the penalty area on Mohamed Salah. Against Arsenal, he was very harshly judged to have given away a penalty after standing his ground against Kai Havertz and he made no attempt to hide his anger at the Germany forward.

A more settled defence will help. Maguire, Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez have become his go-to three with Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui in the wing-back positions. Familiarity can only help.

Any centre-back was going to find it difficult in a team that ceded as much space in midfield as Ten Hag’s United did – a wide open set-up routinely leaving the defence being run at or overloaded and often both at the same time. Amorim has sought to tighten United up defensively, make them more compact and harder to play against.

Most of the goals they have conceded have tended to come from set-pieces or individual blunders, rather than the systematic flaws that plagued Ten Hag’s team. There is so much work to do but there are some signs of them becoming more accustomed to their manager’s demands. Few more so than Maguire.