Tottenham were interested in signing Harry Maguire long before he became the world’s most expensive defender, according to Danny Rose.
Rose told The Lockdown Tactics Podcast that Mauricio Pochettino was “all over” the England defender after Hull’s visit to White Hart Lane in 2016.
“I remember we played Hull at White Hart Lane and we won 3-0,” Metro quotes Rose as saying. “Mauricio was manager and the gaffer was all over Harry. I think they were in for him. Once Poch took a liking to him I started to notice him straightaway after that. It’s been a great journey for him.
“Training with him for England, you couldn’t get the ball off him. He’s so good. He fully deserves to be Manchester United captain.”
The London Evening Standard reported in April 2017 that Maguire was our top defensive target to come in and compete with Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen, with Kevin Wimmer having proved he wasn’t up to it.
In the end, Spurs signed Davinson Sanchez instead, and the Colombian had an excellent debut season but has since had his fair share of problems.
Maguire moved to Leicester in the same summer for £17m – fee according to BBC Sport – whereas Sanchez cost over twice as much from Ajax, at £42m, again according to BBC Sport.
Although I’m not declaring this race finished yet, with Sanchez four years younger than Maguire, and with a very high ceiling if he can improve his distribution and decision making, as it stands we’d have to look back and admit…we backed the wrong horse here.
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Sanchez seems to have problems judging the flight of long balls. When he looks like a comedy routine out there, it’s usually a high ball played long where he’s running/backpedaling toward our goal and gets all tangled up, body shape all wrong, and then makes a mess of trying to win the header. I’d send him for an eye exam, not joking. I’m not even sure it’s a skill you can develop, either your eyes and brain predict the trajectory correctly, or they don’t. His seemingly don’t, might be vision.
After a promising first season, where he used to shoulder charge players in to the stands, Sanchez has not improved. That is concerning. If you can’t learn off Tobes and Jan then it is time to pack in. If sold (before CV19) would we have got £42m for him? I doubt it.