Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford are showing why Manchester United are getting rid of them

Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford are showing why Manchester United are getting rid of them

Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho have become content-creation collaborators in the Manchester United departures’ lounge. United still pay their wages but they brazenly undermined their employers with a choreographed stunt on Sunday.

You may have come across the late-night football programme El Chiringuito in Spain, a telenovela punditry programme where bad news is treated as a tragedy, almost cause for national mourning.

It is so partisan that Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president, used it as his platform to plug the Super League. Perez described Madrid as “broke” and went unchallenged. Months later, they bought Aurelien Tchouameni for €80million.

The programme is live and much of it is undoubtedly scripted but it is not a parody. When Kylian Mbappe had the temerity to reject Madrid in 2022, José Félix Díaz, of Marca, turned to the camera and addressed Mbappe directly: “You’ll be a great player, but never a great man.” Tomas Roncero vented that Mbappe must “swallow the Eiffel Tower” to ever play for Madrid.

English football coverage is better off without its own El Chiringuito. You wonder how Marcus Rashford, who floated the possibility of playing at Barcelona in a chat with a Spanish influencer, would cope with the show’s Catalan contingent if his body language regresses.

If you did not see Garnacho‘s Instagram post, he donned an Aston Villa shirt bearing ‘Rashford 9’, as if Rashford is some cult figure at Villa Park. Rashford tallied four goals in 17 games as Villa slid down the Premier League table, bottled it at Old Trafford to miss out on Champions League qualification and were walloped by Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-final.

Rashford was injured for that humbling at Wembley but was present at the boxing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium later that evening. We are long past the point where Rashford cared about the optics of his social life. He attended a birthday party on Deansgate hours after he was cheered off in a 3-0 Manchester derby defeat at Old Trafford.

Any notion that Garnacho’s post was not choreographed beggars belief. You can tell when he is uploading onto his Instagram page (his passive-aggressive pre-Europa League final story and return from the post-season tour).

The other giveaway is Rashford’s use of the word “brother” in the comments. It is the most hollow and meaningless noun in football. Rashford and Garnacho have only ever socialised during team-bonding dinners.

Garnacho and Rashford rarely linked up on the pitch, never mind off it. Garnacho pinched Rashford’s place on the left wing. One of Rashford’s inner circle dubbed him a “f*****g Ronaldo wannabe”. Now they are “brothers”.

In all probability, neither player literally posted or commented. Rashford’s brother, Dwaine Maynard, accidentally sent a tweet intended for Rashford’s Twitter account from the DN May Sports agency he runs in September 2021. Having interviewed Rashford, a thoughtful talker, his often banal captions never sound like something he would ever say.

Maynard was summoned to United’s Carrington training complex after Rashford’s Belfast bender in January 2024. They know their race is run at United but it is still unedifying to see a player who joined the club’s academy 20 years ago publicly stoop to such a petty low.

Garnacho’s own advisers, Carlos Cambeiro and Enrique de Lucas, have succeeded and failed with the Argentine. They have a client whose value was listed in excess of £100m last year but literally leave Garnacho to his own (smartphone) devices.

He is a loose cannon, regularly sounding off on social media, and failing to gag his lippy brother. Cambeiro and De Lucas are part of the problem. They let the world know they were at Stamford Bridge in January, when Chelsea were giving serious consideration to bidding for Garnacho.

Garnacho turns 21 next week yet acts like the finished article. He is finished at United and, in his desperation, has found an ally in Rashford.

Rashford and Garnacho were both lucratively remunerated in 2023. Garnacho kicked on. It kicked off with Rashford. They had little in common other than their position until they irked Amorim in Plzen back in December.

They were close on the morning of December 15, when both were training at Carrington having been dropped from the squad for the Manchester derby. Garnacho, to his credit, went in one direction and played in every remaining match last season bar the final day win over Villa. Rashford decided on a change of scenery.

It is particularly sobering for United that the two upstarts are academy products that represent the best of both worlds. The local lad and the gem unearthed from abroad.

Some in the United academy can be quick to pat themselves on the back when there is a history of some of their most talented products posing problems, from the frivolous to the serious. The academy cannot parent a player throughout their career or be held completely accountable, but it is cause to take stock.

The brazenness of Garnacho’s post and Rashford’s comment is a throwback to Paul Pogba – another academy graduate – revelling in Jose Mourinho’s sacking on Twitter with his ‘Caption this’ post. Pogba was never disciplined over that.

United resisted selling Pogba, tolerated the late Mino Raiola declaring “it’s over” for him on the eve of a decisive Champions League tie at RB Leipzig (that United lost) and released him. The Stretford End repeatedly chanted “F**k off, Pogba” after he was substituted against Norwich City in April 2022. He did. Pogba never played at Old Trafford again.

Neither, most likely, will Rashford and Garnacho.