‘If we don’t win, it’s a failure’: Maguire sets bold England target for Euro 2024

Harry Maguire says England will have failed if they do not win Euro 2024. The Manchester United captain, who played the 90 minutes of Thursday’s 2-1 win over Italy in Naples that got the qualifying campaign off to a flying start, feels the team is in a good place and has an ideal blend of youth and experience.

Maguire made headlines at the World Cup in Qatar last December when he said before the quarter-final against France that there was a belief in the squad that they had to win the tournament. It was not so much an objective as an obligation. They lost that game 2-1, although Maguire saw nothing from France to suggest they were wildly superior.

The 30-year-old has now upped the ante in a bold mission statement. England face Ukraine at Wembley on Sunday in their next qualifier when they will seek to build on the Italy result – their first away win against Italy since 1961.

“I’m with a mindset of: ‘If we don’t win the tournament, it’s been a failure,’” Maguire said. “We’ve got to qualify first and it’s a tough group. But that’s my mindset. I’ve been at three major tournaments and I’ve come so close. I believe that we have the players to win it.

“We played really well in the World Cup and we got knocked out to a good French team. A French team that we believe we can take on and, if we play them 10 times, we would give them a good game 10 times and probably win more than we lose. However, they’ve proven over the years that they manage to get the job done better than England do.”

Gareth Southgate has stood by Maguire despite the defender’s well-documented difficulties at United – terrible last season; out of the first-choice lineup this time. Maguire has started only five Premier League games during the current campaign,