November saw Greater Manchester Police declare Wayne Rooney a missing person - and the banter brigade are out in force again following his Manchester United side's humbling loss to Bournemouth on Saturday.
The Middleton branch's Twitter account posted the image below, of a beachful of people with their heads buried in the sand, with accompanying text of "Missing report: The Man Utd defensive squad has gone missing. We've located them on Bournemouth beach".
The tweet was deleted shortly afterwards, with the account explaining that they were concerned that the image may have a "sinister origin" that they "knew nothing about" - presumably they were concerned of a link to a possible terrorist/extremist situation. However, they defended themselves (unlike United) with people who questioned what they were doing spending time on posting mocking content.
While United are an easy target right now - the defeat to Bournemouth followed their meek Champions League exit in midweek and a whole season of widely-criticised boring football under Louis van Gaal - did the police go too far in trying to get involved with this sort of ribbing?
As they argue, community policing is about building up trust between the force and the local population - making them approachable and breaking down a 'them and us' perception, but perhaps time spent manning a Twitter account could be better spent on the beat? And what of the 'damage' they might be doing with United fans in the wider public...
(Images: Rex/Twitter)
