This post is part of a series about Harry Maguire. It doesn't aim to absolve him from his mistakes but to only contextualize Harry Maguire's career from the most expensive defender to basically a meme. I really hope with this series I will shed light on one of the most enigmatic careers in top clubs within the last few years. 

You can read the previous parts by clicking below:

Part 1 [When Maguire Won the Treble](https://peakd.com/hive-115900/@amirtheawesome1/when-maguire-won-the-treble)
Part 2 [The Context of Harry Maguire's Fall](https://peakd.com/hive-115900/@amirtheawesome1/the-context-of-harry-maguires-fall)

In this part, I will focus on what I learned from Maguire's fall and the reactions that followed.



<img src="https://i.ibb.co/PgyNYVz/Mulan.png" alt="Mulan" border="0"></a>

Whenever I point out to certain players getting bullied, abused, or mocked online there's always the usual response of "They signed up for this", "They deserve this" or anything of that kind. If you're one of those people, you're not going to like three things that I have to say here, but this is something you need to hear. It is something you simply need to at least fully think about once.

# Think Before Joining the Mob

Think hard before joining the mob, before saying what the mob is saying. Crowds, fans, and mobs, unlike the popular belief, are actually rarely correct. Even if we assume crowds are correct about a certain something, they either exaggerate the reaction or use their correct position to do wrong things. Big crowds, by nature, are savages who rarely think anything through. 

This is simply the nature of crowds. There's no time to review, check, think, or act sanely ahead of a reaction. If there are 5 people near you chanting hard at something you disagree with, the best you can do is be silent and not join them. You might even join the crowd out of fear. However, if you'd sit with each of those 5 people individually, they would probably share opinions that are more sane and logical. 

The problem isn't individuals, but individuals when they get together. So, when Maguire or someone else deserves a certain level of criticism or mockery, crowds would never give him that exact level of criticism or mockery. They might either overlook the entire thing if they love the player, or give him ten times the level of criticism and mockery that was deserved. 

Amidst either reaction, humanity would be taken out of the person we speak of, either by turning him into a God that can't be criticised or just an object that lacks feelings. That is because crowds are people who are led by primary feelings and hysteria, and that's simply how life is and we can't change that. 

What we can do at least in similar contexts to Maguire's case is not to agree with it, not justify it, naturalize it, and not implement it within the "traditions of football". 

I am not here to speak to crowds as crowds but as individuals, as sports fans, sports critics and enthusiasts, whatever criticism you have of a player, you must first isolate it from the social wave and trend of the crowds. Even if a player scores two own goals per game, the crowd's reaction would never be fair or match such actions. 

Simply put, crowds are never a good reference for justice, they never were and never will be. 


# Maguire Still Made Disasters 

The point of my previous wasn't to justify, make light, or completely disregard any mistake that Maguire committed, the point was simply to put it in context. I did so simply because there's a difference between a fool who suddenly decided to become a joke and cost his team matches and a human who fell to circumstances that are bigger than him which he fell to calculate correctly. 

The first of the options in the paragraph above doesn't exist in real life, the second does exist. It is something that happens to people every day, although the scale is different. We all had a certain stage in our lives where we made mistakes, fully gave up to bigger circumstances and caved into pressure. 

# Maguire Was Never The Right Man

That was my opinion since day one and I made a post about it even after Maguire's great performance in the 2018 World Cup. Maguire was never going to be the player who changed Manchester United's defence. Funny enough, I also had a similar opinion of Stones. Both were the most expensive defender upon signing, and both were fought over by Manchester United and Manchester City. Believe it or not, both also refused to leave the club when the pressure for them to do so was at its highest. 

Stones refused to leave Manchester City and this season, Maguire refused to leave Manchester United for West Ham, a decision that I believe is a mistake and a selfish action, it is also an opportunistic and exploitative action that would allow Maguire to keep a salary he simply doesn't deserve any more and stay in a situation that doesn't suit his career anymore and wouldn't let him get higher in his career. 

However, as I stated above, I thought the exact same thing of John Stones when he refused to leave. That's why I no longer know what is the right thing here. Would Maguire have become a Manchester City legend the way Stones became had he moved there instead? Would Stones have led Manchester United to similar glories had he picked them over Manchester City? I truly don't know and anyone who thinks they know is simply lying. 

What I know is the obvious, club circumstances make a difference, a manager makes a difference, teammates make a difference, wins, goals, positive environments in the dressing room and the crowd make a difference. The same applies to 9000 hate tweets, bomb threats, attempted kidnapping, drugging one's sister, a long trial, being misjudged, a toxic dressing room environment, horrible club strategy, and hateful crowds. Those things make a difference as well. 

In the end, we can't fully understand how Stones improved the way he has and how Maguire became the joke we see on social media without human context. That is because of the often-forgotten fact that both players are simply humans who react to circumstances.