John Obi Mikel has urged Michael Carrick to replace Harry Maguire, insisting the centre-back 'was never a Manchester United player'.
Maguire enjoyed a resurgent second half of last season after Carrick's arrival and only narrowly missed out on Thomas Tuchel's England squad for the World Cup. But the 33-year-old, signed in 2019 for a record £80million, still has his detractors and came in for criticism after United's 2-0 defeat to Hull City on the opening day of the new Premier League season.
Set-piece struggles against Hull
With Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs de Ligt still working their way back to full fitness, Maguire started alongside Ayden Heaven in United's back four as they conceded twice via set-pieces against their newly-promoted opponents.
And former Premier League winner Obi Mikel believes that the veteran England defender needs to be taken out of United's starting XI if the Red Devils are going to improve in the coming weeks.
Obi Mikel's criticism
'When your top centre-back is Harry Maguire, you have a problem,' he said on The Obi One Podcast. 'Harry Maguire was never a Manchester United player, never suited the system or the football club.
'The fact that he has managed to stay there for seven, eight seasons is incredible. How has that happened? I don't understand that, and he's still there, and he's the number one defender. That's a problem.'
Obi Mikel continued: 'The first goal, he was grabbing his own player and stopping him from going to defend the guy who was scoring. What was he doing? I have no idea.
'They have Lisandro Martinez, Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro; they have players there. But I don't know why he is still starting.
'Is he good to be a squad player because of his experience? Yes. But not to start games, not to be your number one centre-back.
'He's slow on the ball; he touches it three or four times before releasing it. He doesn't know what to do with the ball, he's confused when he has the ball.
'A centre-back needs to move the ball quicker, but Maguire doesn't know how to do that quickly enough and get the team to play at the right tempo.'
Carrick's response
Speaking after the game, Carrick was keen to defend his side's performance and insisted they would learn from the defeat.
'Two goals conceded any way is frustrating. We've been pretty good at defending set-pieces over a period of time but they decided the game today.
'There are things to improve on, but again, one game doesn't change the direction of everything, but we need to be aware of what we need to get better at.'
United are back in action on Sunday at home to Ipswich Town.
