The compliment came from the man standing behind him
“He’s becoming a real monster in there.”
Harry Maguire said that about Kobbie Mainoo after Manchester United put five past Ipswich Town last weekend. Centre-backs do not hand out that sort of line lightly, least of all about the player screening them.
“His work without the ball has improved so much since Michael came in. Without the ball, he’s becoming a real monster in there. He wins loads of second balls, he wins loads of duels. You don’t want to play against him in that role, and that’s the biggest compliment I can give him.”
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Eighteen months ago he could not get on the pitch
January 2025. Ruben Amorim was standing in front of cameras explaining that Mainoo “was struggling a lot to defend as a midfielder.” The minutes vanished within weeks.
Amorim had put him in direct competition with Bruno Fernandes for one of two central slots. The captain played basically every game. Mainoo sat. Transfer rumours started, the fanbase got loud, and nobody in the press could work out the logic.
“You all love Kobbie, he’s a starter for England. But that doesn’t mean I have to play Kobbie when I feel I don’t have to play Kobbie. It’s my decision,” Amorim said back then.
Amorim was sacked that January. Darren Fletcher, then Michael Carrick, scrapped the back three, and a proper midfield reappeared. Mainoo racked up 1 441 Premier League minutes between the sacking and the end of the season, third among United’s outfield players.
His numbers live in the tight spaces
Nothing in Mainoo’s stat line grabs you at first glance. Look at what he does when opponents are on top of him and it changes.
He completed 87,1 % of his passes under pressure last season, 10th among the 44 central and defensive midfielders with at least 650 such attempts. Passes into the final third: 8th of 61 at 78,7 %. Under heavy pressure that figure was 76,9 %, good for 6th. Forward passes with a man on him, 71 % success, fifth out of 81.
The Ipswich game added a different flavour. Ten ball recoveries, a personal Premier League best. Nine duels won, his third-highest in the competition. He shoved Emersonn off the ball in the centre circle, shrugged away Sasa Lukic, then went past three players before the pass that won the penalty.
He was man of the match in an FA Cup final against Manchester City a month after his 19th birthday, so the talent was never in question. The body was. United go to Everton this weekend, which is where the whole thing began for him in November 2023.
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