The six Man Utd centre-backs Harry Maguire has somehow outlasted after earning eighth season | OneFootball

Harry Maguire will be a Manchester United player for at least another season after earning a new contract to take him into an eighth year with the club.

There have been times when it looked like Maguire would never get there. Immediately put under huge scrutiny for becoming the most expensive defender in history when United spent £80m to sign him from Leicester City in 2019, he settled in well at first and soon became captain, but things started to go downhill.

Maguire was stripped of the captaincy in 2023, the same year a deal was agreed for him to move to West Ham. But the move never went through and he earned a new contract 18 months later, and now he’s signed yet another after returning to form this season.

After receiving no England caps last year, Maguire now has a genuine chance of going to the World Cup this summer. Whether he does or not, another year as a United player awaits him after – and that’s what he deserves for his commitment and refusal to let the outside noise define him.

Still, it’s quite remarkable how many other centre-backs Maguire has outlasted over his time at Old Trafford.

We’ve taken a look at the centre-backs to have left United since Maguire joined and ranked them by plausibility that Maguire has outlasted them, from most to least believable (and without counting academy products).

6) Phil Jones

From the moment Maguire signed for United, Jones only played 13 more games for the club, despite sticking around for four long years.

Jones was only 27 by the summer of 2019, but injury issues derailed the rest of his career. It became a simple decision for United to release him when his contract expired in 2023.

But after playing more than 200 times for the club, his standing remained high behind closed doors and he began working as a coach in the United academy.

5) Marcos Rojo

It’s not a surprise that Maguire outlasted Rojo at United considering the Argentine only played 18 times across the two seasons before Maguire’s arrival, an ACL injury in April 2017 having taken its toll.

Only nine more appearances followed for Rojo from the 2019/2o season onwards – despite a frankly ludicrous contract extension. He had a loan spell with Estudiantes before signing for Boca Juniors in February 2021.

4) Eric Bailly

Bailly missed the first half of Maguire’s debut season with United – and his own fourth – due to injury, before signing a contract extension.

He earned another new deal the following year, but his gametime was still dwindling and he left on loan for Marseille in 2022 before joining Besiktas permanently.

At his best, Bailly was a capable defender for United, but inconsistency and injuries meant his best wasn’t seen frequently enough.

3) Jonny Evans

Evans returned to United in 2023 to take on a senior role in the squad, earning a somewhat unexpected 30 appearances in his debut season.

Evans was then awarded another year’s contract at Old Trafford, but he was much less involved before retiring and taking on a youth development role at the club.

Maguire has a bigger appearance tally for United than Evans, despite the former Northern Ireland international having two spells with the club.

2) Victor Lindelof

After joining United two years before Maguire, Lindelof remained at the club until last summer, signing a couple of contract extensions along the way. Shocker.

Before his move as a free agent to Aston Villa, the Sweden international played 284 times for United, winning the EFL Cup in 2023 and the FA Cup in 2024 (even though, of the two finals, he only played in stoppage time of the latter).

While he wasn’t the most consistent player, it was a respectable United career for Lindelof.

He was 23 when he made his debut for the club, with time ahead to develop into a top-class centre-back. Ultimately, he never quite got there, but he was a reliable enough servant.

He has more appearances for United to his name than Maguire, but barring any serious injuries, that will change thanks to the Englishman’s new contract.

1) Raphael Varane

Varane was a high-pedigree signing for United’s defence in 2021 after a trophy-littered decade of service to Real Madrid.

It’s easy to forget that Varane was still only 28 at the time of his arrival at Old Trafford – the kind of age that usually still corresponds to a player’s prime years.

Over the following three seasons, Varane played 95 times. He completed the full 90 minutes of both of those domestic cup final wins.

Considering he was born a month after Maguire, you would have expected a player of Varane’s calibre’s exit date to have been more recent, but that wasn’t the case as United neglected an option to extend his contract by a year until 2025.

“At the start of my last season at Manchester United, I was already telling myself that I would have liked to finish there, to extend the adventure a little,” he told L’Equipe in 2024, having had to retire due to injury after just one game for his next club, Como. “It didn’t happen, and the summer was very eventful.

“I was looking for something special, and that’s how I found Como. With United, I finished with a victory in the cup, but I already knew that the club’s project didn’t suit me.”

And so Varane moved on as United added Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro to their defence. Might Maguire even outlast either of them, or Lisandro Martinez? Surely not, but there is an option for him to stay beyond next season as well.

Compared to some of the names featured earlier, Maguire is now getting to a tipping point where the centre-backs he is challenging are widely considered to be better than him. If he outlasts them, it would be a testament to his consolidation with United.

But even if this is the last contract he signs with the club, he deserves recognition for his redemption arc.