Police have poked fun at Manchester United’s stuttering form - with a tongue-in-cheek Twitter post.

The light-hearted picture post, which mocked United’s defence, shows rows of people with their heads buried in sand.

The football club’s crest has been superimposed onto their bodies and the Tweet is headlined: “Missing report.”

It was posted by officers based at Greater Manchester Police’s Middleton division after United lost 2-1 in the Premier League at Bournemouth on Saturday, the club’s second loss in successive matches after being dumped out of the Champions League at VfL Wolfsburg in Germany last week.

The Tweet goes on: “The Man Utd defensive squad has gone missing. We’ve located them on Bournemouth beach.”

It was sent to the UK Cop Humour Twitter account, an independent collection of ‘funny tweets from the world of the British bobby’. It’s not affiliated to any force.

The post has had dozens of re-tweets and likes, with mixed opinions.

Joyce said on Twitter in response to the post: “Joking about Missing people from an official police account is not good guys. Especially at Xmas.”

And Brett Gaskell added: “Nice to see your working hard catching criminals.”

But in a follow up post to Brett, the police division said (sic): “Thanks Brett for the praise, much appreciated. Apparently the defending was criminal so alls good.”