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

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.

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.

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