Anthony Martial faces being fined £180,000 fined by Manchester United after going AWOL from the club's tour of America.
Martial has not trained for eight days since leaving United's training base in LA to be at the birth of his baby boy in Paris.
Jose Mourinho called for the France winger to return to the US, but United flew home from Miami in the early hours of Wednesday having not seen Martial for more than a week.
Mourinho admitted after United's win over Real Madrid that he had 'no idea' if the player will rejoin the rest of his team-mates.
United believe the 22-year-old is in breach of contract and are ready to take disciplinary action over his unauthorised absence. The standard punishment would be a fine of a fortnight's wages for a player who earns £90,000-a-week.
Martial's future at Old Trafford now hangs in the balance after the issue stretched his relationship with Mourinho to breaking point.
The United boss wants to sell Martial before the August 9 deadline and Martial wants to leave the club after three years.
He left The Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills against Mourinho's wishes last week and flew to France to be at the birth of his baby son Swan with partner Melanie Da Cruz.
The player made it clear to friends that he had no intention of returning to camp even though the baby was born only 24 hours later.
The United manager responded by calling for Martial to come back following his team's defeat to Liverpool in Michigan on Saturday. 'He has the baby and after the baby is born – beautiful baby, full of health, thank God – he should be here and he is not here,' said Mourinho, having previously made a pointed reference to it being Martial's second child.
United were due to land in England on Wednesday morning, and Mourinho will give the players who went on tour Thursday off. They will re-assemble at Carrington on Friday and it remains to be seen if Martial returns to the club.
The latest issue for Mourinho comes at the end of a disastrous pre-season tour, in which his relations with the club have been stretched.
As revealed by Sportsmail this week, Mourinho's black mood is bringing down his players and unsettling staff on a troubled tour of the US - and he has moved into the bookies' favourite to be the first Premier League manager to leave his position.
The worst result of the tour came against rivals Liverpool in front of 101,000 fans in Michigan at the weekend, and immediately after the game the United boss said: 'The atmosphere was good but if I was them [the fans] I wouldn't have come.
'I wouldn't have spent my money to watch these two teams. I watched Chelsea versus Inter earlier and people had decided the beach was better. The stadium was empty.
'This is not our team, not our squad. The majority of players that have played are not going to play. Some of them are not even going to belong to the squad. The accumulation of matches is killing progressively my brave boys because I have some brave boys.
'Reinforcements, you are saying players I'd like to buy and add to the squad. That is another thing, but this is not even 30 per cent of my squad, so don't look at this that way.
'We have four or five players that are dead because they care for the club, for the team, they try to give everything, even risking themselves because they don't want to let all the kids play by themselves against AC Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid. They don't want to do that.'
Nesaiknruy
104
Boo Hoo, the media and United fans need to face reality. What he's saying is right and United have a right to fine a player who casually skips time without permission. Big Mou is literally like the best manager of this gen to still be coaching and took United from a team of bums to proper players. He literally said the older players are gonna cover for the younger players and it's not more than 30% of his squad which is true lol. And Martial isn't worth sulking over, its not mbappe so get over yourselves with players like Sanchez, Lukaku, Pogba, Matic, Rashford, Lingard and De Gea, how can you have time to only rate Martial lol. No player is bigger than the club, unfortunately some of you plastics probably don't understand what this means 🤔
Koyabosu
70
Martial although I Like him to be in the team his recent behaviour is deplorable to say the least. You can understand him wanting to be at his wife's side when the baby boy comes. But report back to camp two or 3 days later. Especially so because the boss wants you there. Other than that you have absolutely no justification to blame the manager. Big clubs are what they are because every player in the team give their all for the club and not because managers are pampering them. If Martial is not prepared to give his all just let him leave. My advice to him is that he should go to some lowly club where maybe his behaviour will be tolerated. He looks to be destined for failure.
Pewiklny
67
you can be a young talent and put up this lazy attitude and still want ur manager to feature u in his first.matial need to situp and stop this childish behavior. and those of u who are mourinho foes,if u can stand him leave the club.
dekalnstu
56
I really don't know how most people understand football management, this is only for his own development a player last season that was very inconsistent should be taken advantage of pre season and win the manager's trust most especially when most of d other guys are still on break he should look at other young players Lingard, Mappeh, or Issco doing everything to raise their game and got call to their national teams mourino given every player time to improve or develop why will Madrid want Martial in fact to play in front who??There will always be competition at big clubs so you have to be strong mentally and n have patience. now,he will be fined by the board so your leave mou alone to do his job he has been successful already at utd
ramlmrs
48
Jose must win trust from Players. He is fond of complaining. He hates Martial, but other senior players not happy too! Must start acting giving us results instead of hate speeches. Chelsea sacked him cause of the same.
wombcnpy
45
martial wants to play football week in week out and last season spent the majority of the season warming the bench. That cost him a place in the French squad that won the world cup. He's too good to sit out the French squad let alone Mou's team. Mou just let the boy go. Dnt pretend to value him coz yu dnt
EDWARDBRIGHT
32
let leave mourinho to do is job is a boss he have right to talk to them and control them I know this man love those guys but most of man united players they are out of control and not ready for discipline why most people blame mourinho is because they don't like him someone talk about gadiola I mean man city boss to forget what he did to yaya
wretchedalien
24
Martial is a good player but I think having talent can only bring you so far it is having the right attitude that will keep you there! That right attitude is something that I think Martial do not have at the moment! I am not in favour of everything Mourinho does but for this I stand by Mourinho because I think attitude is more important than talent.
Davichi
12
let leave mourinho to do is job is a boss he have right to talk to them and control them I know this man love those guys but most of man united players they are out of control and not ready for discipline why most people blame mourinho is because they don't like him someone talk about gadiola I mean man city boss to forget what he did to yaya
A manager is not there to "control" his players, but to "manage" them. You guys still fail to see that the same attitude that drove Mourinho from Madrid and Chelsea is what he is putting up at United now (Mourinho's 3rd season syndrome). How come he is the only manager in Europe that continues to experience issues with most of his players every where he goes? This should be enough to show to everyone that he is the problem, not his players. If you follow what happened at City, it was Yaya's agent that raised up issues between Pep and Yaya based in what happened at Barca. But Pep still gave him playing time till the end of his first season with City. The case of Mour is different... he fights with the board, coaching staff, medical staff, players, fans, referees and ball boys. What sort of a manager is that? These are the kind of things that made Giggs refuse to work with him. If Mour is tired he should leave peacefully.