Harry Maguire explains Man United moment that made him “even more unhappy” vs Coventry

Manchester United defender Harry Maguire has revealed that he was carrying an injury into the Red Devils’ FA Cup semi-final match against Coventry City.

In the wake of United’s season-long injury crisis, Maguire was the only senior centre-back Erik ten Hag had at his disposal for the semi-final contest.

The Red Devils had six separate centre-half options out for the match as a result of injury, with the following names all forced into missing the contest:

• Lisandro Martinez
• Willy Kambwala
• Jonny Evans
• Luke Shaw
• Raphael Varane
• Victor Lindelof

Partnered with an out-of-position Casemiro and dealing with an injury himself, Maguire forced his way through 120 minutes of action, before United defeated Coventry via penalties.

Discussing his injury with MUTV, Maguire was quick to praise United’s coaching staff who had to prepare for the match without any centre-backs taking part in training.

However, the centre-back also admitted that he was far from pleased that he needed to play an additional 30 minutes after Coventry forced the game to go into extra-time.

“I always put the club first. I haven’t really trained this week, after having a niggle at Bournemouth,” Maguire admitted to a member of the club’s media team.

“So, I was even more unhappy that we had to go to extra time and play that extra 30 minutes, having not been fully fit, [and] having not trained all week.

“But, I feel good mentally and physically. It’s been a tough season for everybody with injuries and it must be so frustrating for the staff.

“Preparing for the game this week and I’m obviously unavailable to train. You’ve got Willy [Kambwala] whose picked up another injury, Sofyan [Amrabat], Mason [Mount] and the staff must be scratching their heads and working out how to do tactics.

“They can’t work with a back four [that] has no centre-halves training. It’s been a difficult week, but we’re in a cup final and it’s something that we’ll look forward to.”

This season Maguire has made 29 appearances in all competitions for Ten Hag’s Red Devils, with the former club captain playing the most Premier League minutes of any of United’s central defenders so far this campaign.