'MANCHESTER UNITED IS MORE THAN A FOOTBALL CLUB'

Skipper Harry Maguire says Manchester United is more than a football club as he is proud of the way everybody is handling the current situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The England centre-back joined from Leicester City last summer and took over the armband when Ashley Young left for Internazionale in January.

With Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side hitting top form before football shut down, the signs were looking good for a strong finish to the 2019/20 campaign.

In an interview with ex-Red Gary Neville on Sky Sports's The Football Show, the imposing defender was asked if he was happy with the choice he made to switch to Old Trafford during the 2019 close season.

“Yeah, definitely,” Maguire replied. “It's such a big club, an iconic club that, as soon as I knew Man United were interested, I was champing at the bit to get there. As soon as I came to the club, just the way the club is run, I was so happy at the decision.

“Obviously, we had some difficult times at the start of the season, where results didn't go our way, and you know when you play for a club like Manchester United that the pressure comes down on you, but we know we're on the right track. We've always felt that we're on the right track.”

“Like I said, there's so much work to do,” he insisted. “I'm not saying that we're there yet but, if we keep improving like we have this season, and I'm sure next season will be better than this season and so on, we'll build and try to reach our goals.

“It's more than a club, more than a football club. You see the way they've acted during this crisis, how classy they've been throughout, it's more than a football club. It works in the community and in Manchester, and you can see over the crisis the many things they've done.”

Maguire rightly has lofty ambitions for the club when the action resumes, and in the coming years.

“I think you can see, from the start of the season, we look a lot more like a team,” he added. “We can probably see where we want to go, where we want to head.

“Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of aspects we need to improve to get to the top of where we want to be. We don't want to be challenging for this Champions League spot, we want to be challenging for titles.”