The leaks that sprung from the visiting dressing room at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday evening were as inevitable as they were shameful.
From the news that Ralf Rangnick's Manchester United team selections are upsetting some players, to Marcus Rashford's apparent unhappiness with his current playing time; it truly was a lesson in how to badly misread the room. On Tuesday, more murmurings about being unhappy with Rangnick and his methods emerged.
Many United fans reacted to Sunday's Manchester derby aberration by urging players not to trot out the usual hollow social media apologies. It was rightly said they would be empty and meaningless. In the end, it actually reflected well on Jadon Sancho and David de Gea — United's two best players in the 4-1 defeat to City — that they spoke directly to their followings on Instagram rather than through conduits with media leaks.
