t took just a few clicks of a phone for Alejandro Garnacho to undermine Erik ten Hag.

Shortly after Manchester United’s game against Bournemouth, Garnacho liked tweets questioning his substitution and it was unsurprising to see that undone by the next morning.

On Monday, a United spokesperson said the matter was dealt with internally but declined to clarify whether Garnacho has been outright disciplined by his manager. Garnacho has started 24 games in the Premier League this season and it’s stunning that he felt emboldened to publicly question Ten Hag, who has overseen his breakthrough into the first team.

When United travelled to Thailand and Australia for pre-season after Ten Hag’s appointment, Garnacho was the outfield player not to receive a single minute when the likes of Ethan Laird, Zidane Iqbal, Charlie Savage and Tahith Chong were all given a chance to play.

Bruno Fernandes later revealed Garnacho ‘was not at his best’ due to concerns over his attitude and it seemed those types of issues were a thing of the past with the winger.

Garnacho’s social media antics last weekend were inadvisable and a regression to who he was on that pre-season tour – a young player who needed to be guided.

That is forgivable to an extent – he’s only 19 and everyone does daft things in their teenage years – but he knew liking those tweets would cause trouble and must act better.

United will play Coventry City in the FA Cup semi-final on Sunday and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Garnacho benched or named in the starting line-up again.

Either outcome is plausible given there is a week’s break to put the incident behind him, although if Ten Hag does decide to bench him, Garnacho must accept it and move on.

Ten Hag has dealt with several disciplinary issues during his time in charge and there has been a suggestion such problems happen more at United than any other club. But United are the biggest English club and are covered extensively around the world, so any incidents are bound to be magnified and prominent in the news cycle.

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