Dini criticized Maguire’s uniform on the radio. After that, Harry’s agent called Troy with threats.

The story then took an unexpected turn.

Birmingham captain Troy Deeney, 34, came on the Fozcast podcast to see his former Watford teammate Ben Foster. During the conversation, the Englishman recalled a story from 2020 in which Harry Maguire and his agent were the main characters.

“Then I was playing for Watford,” Dini recalls. “I got called on the radio where I talked about leadership, about Maguire, David de Gea, all those older guys, and why Paul Pogba’s form is changing so much. That’s all I said then.

I went to practice and when I came back, my phone was called from a number I don’t know. This number called two or three times, so I thought: “Probably something happened.”

The phone rang again. It was Harry Maguire’s agent: “You can’t do this, you can’t do that. You wouldn’t have said those words to Harry’s face.” To which I replied: “Man, take it easy. One second, let’s rewind everything. I said something else, I didn’t say that. I could say everything to Harry’s face because I don’t have a problem with it.”

Dini then revealed that he called Maguire to see if comments about him were annoying. “I called him and he has no idea what is going on. I called the agent back and said, “Listen buddy, please don’t call me and don’t spout bullshit because I’m not the type of guy to eat that kind of attitude. You will have problems that you don’t want.”

At that moment, I realized that my voice was powerful and penetrating. I just said “what about leadership” which made this super agent come out of his little nest and say, “Okay, Troy, we’re going too far.”

Dini continued: “To be fair, Harry told me, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I answered him: “This is not a problem, but your agent called me and spoke aggressively.” If I were younger, I would take it much more personally. Now I’m telling you to your face, there are no problems.”

The call allegedly came after Dini said on talkSPORT: “I can’t understand why people are talking about Pogba, but no one is criticizing Maguire? Why isn’t there much criticism towards him? Isn’t he the captain and should lead the ship forward?