Before the enforced pause on football due to the coronavirus, the pair sat down with Inside United to discuss all aspects of their partnership which has helped the Reds claim one of the best defensive records in all of Europe this term and has yielded nine clean sheets from our last 11 matches.

During their chat with IU, Harry and Victor reflected on their growing bond and understanding as a duo, their memories of their first game together, what they work on as a pairing in training and why they are focused on getting even stronger as a unit...

How would you sum up your partnership so far?

Victor Lindelof: It’s great to play with Harry. He’s a fantastic player and it’s great to partner with him. We want to win more games and I think for every game we play together we become better and better. Hopefully we can keep improving and help the team get more clean sheets and get more results.

Harry Maguire: It’s been brilliant [playing with Victor]. We’ve had a good season up to now together. When you form partnerships it takes time, I’m learning his game and he’s learning mine and I think we’re getting better. We’re keeping a lot more clean sheets than we were at start of season and we’ve never really been a team which has conceded a lot of chances. We’ve been poor from set-plays with our defending and we’ve had a couple of great goals scored against us from outside the box, but we haven’t really been having games where David [De Gea] has had to make five or six saves apart from maybe the Carabao Cup second leg against City when David was brilliant. It’s a partnership that’s building and I think we’ll get better and better, and start keeping more clean sheets like we have been doing recently.

What are your memories of playing against each other?

VL: I played against him a few times when he was at Leicester and I played against him in the World Cup when he scored against us and I’m still a bit mad at him for that! [Laughs] I thought he was a great player back then and it’s great to have him on my team.

HM: Obviously as Vic said it was a big game in a quarter-final of the World Cup and both teams had done brilliantly to get there and to score the first goal was brilliant. A lot of big games nowadays are decided by set-play goals and it was a tight game that day and we managed to get the first one and it’s a great memory for me. I knew before I came here how good a player Vic was. I’ve watched him playing for United in the last couple of years and he’s grown and grown. I’ve seen that again this season and he’s going to be a great player for the future as well as now.