Ralf Rangnick has doubled down on his decision to deny Jesse Lingard a final Old Trafford appearance for Manchester United.
Lingard, who is out of contract in June, was an unused substitute in United's final home game of the season against Brentford and in an Instagram post his brother, Louie Scott, lambasted Rangnick's refusal to introduce him as 'classless'.
Scott added 'no wonder it's Europa Conference League' next season and Lingard posted a picture of him as a boy looking quizzical in training at United's Carrington training complex.
Read more: United give injury and team news vs Brighton
Rangnick, who outlined why Lingard did not come on at his post-match press conference, dismissed the Lingard family's complaints.
"To start with, I think in the last couple of weeks under my tenure he has played far more games than he used to before I came," Rangnick stressed. "Number two: on game day against Chelsea he contacted me in the hotel and asked me to release him from the game and to also release him from the training session the following day and two days after the Chelsea game for personal family reasons. And I also allowed him to do that.
"And this was the reason with only three subs, unfortunately - in the other leagues you have five subs - I had to take a decision between bringing on Edinson Cavani or Jesse Lingard, or even the young Alejandro Garnacho, whom I would have loved to have brought on and given a chance after going 3-0 up with 15 minutes to play. But I took the decision to bring on Edinson for the very reasons I just explained to you.
"Had I not brought on someone maybe someone else might have posted it was classless not to bring on Edinson Cavani or somebody else might have posted 'why didn't the manager bring on the young Alejandro Garnacho?' With only three subs and two already done, you have to take a decision and this will not be to the liking of everybody, this is also part of the game.
"To be honest, I'm not reading a lot, I've not had the time in the last six months to read, I'm not Instagram, as you know, I'm not on Facebook, I'm not engaged in those areas.
"My focus has always been here, with my coaching staff, to develop the team. In those days with social media, there is always somebody posting something and it's important for us at the club not to take too much notice of that. Unless it's the player himself, it might be a different story."
