Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag reacts to potential Alejandro Garnacho ban over Andre Onana post

Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag insists the squad “are united” despite Alejandro Garnacho potentially facing a ban over his deleted post on X about Andre Onana.

The Red Devils youngster posted a photo of the Man Utd players congratulating Onana on his stoppage-time penalty save against Copenhagen in the Champions League, which secured Ten Hag’s side all three points.

Garnacho posted two gorilla emojis as the caption without words, with the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, quickly deleted.

The Argentina international could now be at risk of Football Association punishment but Onana leapt to his defence of his Man Utd team-mate, insisting the “matter should go no further”.

Onana wrote on X: “People cannot choose what I should be offended by. I know exactly what @agarnacho7 meant: power & strength. This matter should go no further.”

And Ten Hag confirmed that Man Utd are currently talking to the FA about the post with the governing body asking Garnacho for his observations about his post.

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Ten Hag said: “Not in this moment, we are talking with the FA, what you see, I can confirm that and I want to emphasise we are together, we are united, you saw that with the post of Andre.”

Former United striker Edinson Cavani was banned for three games and fined £100,000 in 2020 for using the Spanish phrase ‘Gracias negrito’ – which translates as ‘thanks little black’ – below a friend’s Instagram post.

Cavani also underwent a two-hour face-to-face training course for a comment said to be a term of endearment in his native Uruguay.

In 2019, Bernardo Silva was given a one-match ban and fined £50,000 by the FA for his tweet to Manchester City colleague Benjamin Mendy.

Silva tweeted an image of a young Mendy alongside an image of the cartoon brand mascot of Spanish confectionery brand Conguitos, with the caption “Guess who?”

Cavani and Silva were both punished by the FA after deleting their messages.

On their recent performance levels after three straight wins in all competitions, Man Utd boss Ten Hag added: “I said in the right direction, we have a way to go, I see positives and I see also negatives, probably what Christian is referring to, we are not consistently in position at the level we can be where we show in games we can be, like Arsenal away and the first 20 minutes at Bayern away.

“We should do this on a consistent basis, but pressing we’re quite good, we have the most ball regains from the whole Premier League, the most middle regains in the whole league, our defending and pressing organisation, that is us. But we don’t take benefit in the attacking transition moments, we have the ability in our teams to take benefits from it. This is how to grow and progress and the games will become more easy.”

On their lack of goals this season, Ten Hag continued: “The cooperation has to click, but we showed this week some examples where there are so many we have overload positions, going in overload position to the opponent’s goal and we don’t net or don’t even hit the target.

“We don’t have time to train this, we give some coaching and I’m convinced with the quality from our players that they will go and score more goals.”