sport news GRAEME SOUNESS: Harry Maguire has become a lightning rod for Man United's ... trends now

I certainly knew what getting stick looked and sounded like when I was player. I was part of a very successful team but the way I played — and the perception that I had been naughty on the pitch at times — got me flak.

When people are part of a gang or a crowd, they’re more likely to say something than they would if they were standing right in front of you, looking you in the eye. That’s never changed.

I knew nothing like the level of abuse Harry Maguire gets, though, and it astonishes me, even though it seems to be part of the world we now live in. Eric Dier was talking last week about the stick his own family get at grounds. This is a level of hate I didn’t know as a player.

Some of it is dished out through social media, which is a world to be avoided at all costs for players. Maguire will go on there to apologise for a Manchester United performance and then get hammered for doing so. Why on earth do players do this? Because they can get a couple of million followers and they can monetise that? They all earn quite enough money not to need this.

I’ll bet you that if you asked 200 Premier League players, do they want to be on Instagram, Twitter or whatever else they go on, 90 per cent of them would say, ‘I don’t want to be on it but my agent says it’s good thing’. And why is the agent so keen? Money, of course. You don’t need to put yourself out there to be ridiculed just to line an agent’s pocket

Maguire is at particular risk of the kind of pile-on we’re seeing because a failing Manchester United made him the most expensive central defender in the world and then made him their captain. So he becomes a lightning rod for all United’s ills. All the club’s failings are piled at his door. Ridiculous. I can’t remember a game United lost because of Harry Maguire alone.

He has been guilty of making mistakes. But if you make a mistake in that position, it generally leads to an effort on your goal. You’re relying on having good central midfielders in front of you, putting the ball under pressure, trying to protect you at all times, making sure that if a ball is played through into your area, it’s of no great quality. United’s players in those central midfield positions haven’t been good enough.

I don’t think Maguire has ever been part of a reliable and consistent United back four. Raphael Varane has shown more consistency this year, but you’d never say Eric Bailly or Victor Lindelof would have another big club wanting to sign them.

It’s the level of abuse which is bewildering, though. I witness it at games and it’s water off a duck’s back to me now. I’m of a certain age and a certain character where nothing really bothers me.

But if you’re a public figure today, you are apparently there to be ridiculed and that seems to be accepted. That’s the 21st century. That’s 2022.

I particularly despise the keyboard warriors we have now. Faceless pygmies who will write abuse about someone, knowing that they will never be confronted. Knowing no one will ever find out who they are and who is spouting all this vile hate.

I’ve met Maguire once and he seemed a thoroughly decent young man with a very good attitude. It was only a

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