No one is bigger than United - not even Ronaldo

You can only imagine how rubbish we would have felt going in to this long break for the World Cup, had Alejandro Garnacho not popped up with that fantastic late winner against Fulham. Within hours of the final whistle, we were greeted with the disappointing news that Cristiano Ronaldo had given an exlcusive to Piers Morgan and The Sun to drag the club and manager through the mud.
In this interview, he has claimed that he’s being forced out of the club by new manager Erik ten Hag and that he feels betrayed.
Hearing this had me scratching my head, because presumably to be forced out of somewhere, you have to want to be there in the first place. It had been well documented this summer that Jorge Mendes had been trying to find a new home for Ronaldo, but no club, other than Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal, were reportedly interested in paying his salary demands.
I had presumed we had seen Ronaldo in a United shirt for the last time before the season even started and liked the romance behind the idea of him returning to Sporting Lisbon, the Portuguese side we’d signed him from all those years ago after he had ripped John O’Shea a new one in a pre-season friendly.
We had no Champions League football on offer, so understood his desire to keep scoring goals in his favoured competition, with the clock ticking on his career. Ronaldo is rich beyond belief, he could play for free for his final years and it wouldn’t make a difference to his bank balance. Why wouldn’t he take a huge pay cut and return as a hero to Sporting Lisbon, to play in an easy group and see out his European
You can only imagine how rubbish we would have felt going in to this long break for the World Cup, had Alejandro Garnacho not popped up with that fantastic late winner against Fulham. Within hours of the final whistle, we were greeted with the disappointing news that Cristiano Ronaldo had given an exlcusive to Piers Morgan and The Sun to drag the club and manager through the mud.
In this interview, he has claimed that he’s being forced out of the club by new manager Erik ten Hag and that he feels betrayed.
Hearing this had me scratching my head, because presumably to be forced out of somewhere, you have to want to be there in the first place. It had been well documented this summer that Jorge Mendes had been trying to find a new home for Ronaldo, but no club, other than Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal, were reportedly interested in paying his salary demands.
I had presumed we had seen Ronaldo in a United shirt for the last time before the season even started and liked the romance behind the idea of him returning to Sporting Lisbon, the Portuguese side we’d signed him from all those years ago after he had ripped John O’Shea a new one in a pre-season friendly.
We had no Champions League football on offer, so understood his desire to keep scoring goals in his favoured competition, with the clock ticking on his career. Ronaldo is rich beyond belief, he could play for free for his final years and it wouldn’t make a difference to his bank balance. Why wouldn’t he take a huge pay cut and return as a hero to Sporting Lisbon, to play in an easy group and see out his European career on a high?
But no deal was forthcoming and so he stayed put, with questions already being asked how he was going to fit in to Ten Hag’s style of play.

Ronaldo missed the pre-season tour and in every press conference Ten Hag was flooded with questions about his absence. If the manager wasn’t keen on him, you’d never know it, as he always insisted he was looking forward to working with him and that they had been on the phone to each other, even in the player’s absence.

He is not with us, and it is due to personal reasons. We are planning with Cristiano Ronaldo for this season. That’s it and I’m looking forward to working with him. Cristiano is not for sale. Cristiano is in our plans and we want to get success together. I had a good conversation with him. I had a really good talk. [The conversation] is between Cristiano and me. But what I can confirm is we had a really good conversation together.

With Ronaldo mourning the loss of one child, and caring for a sick daughter, he eventually returned for a friendly against Rayo Vallecano at Old Trafford. He was substituted at half-time and left the stadium before the end of the game. It was clearly unacceptable, but he wasn’t the only player to do it, and Ten Hag came out in defence of Ronaldo when the press encouraged him to be critical. 

Those who left, there were many players who left but the spotlight is on Cristiano and that’s not right, so I think, do your research.

He was asked how he felt about going in to the new season with Ronaldo in the squad, given he didn’t fit Ten Hag’s typical player to lead the line, but he was again on Team Ronaldo.

I’m really happy. I had told you before, we planned with him for the season. We have a top striker and I’m really happy he’s here, he’s in the squad and we stick to the plan.

Ronaldo was left out of the starting XI for the opening games of the Premier League campaign, given he was still not match fit, but was still regularly brought off the bench to build up his sharpness.
His first goal of the season came after eight appearances, in the Europa League, when he found the back of the net from the penalty spot against Sheriff Tiraspol. Anthony Martial had picked up yet another injury, unsurprisingly, meaning that Ronaldo became a regular starter. His next goal was an important one, the winner away to relegation fighters Everton a few weeks later, but it was already becoming noticeable that United looked a better side without him. Gone had the time when he relied on him to get us a win, but rather we were starting to accommodate him, with his lack of willingness to press and often wayward shooting.
There were some nerves ahead of our game against Tottenham Hotspur, who were level on points with second placed City at the time, but we won the game comfortably, easily the better side. With Ten Hag attempting to learn his lesson from a few weeks earlier, when he failed to bring Ronaldo on for the final minutes against City, he signalled for Ronaldo to warm up.
Unbelievably, Ronaldo refused to play and stomped off the pitch, ignoring the children who were reaching out their hands for a high five at the tunnel. For the second time in a couple of months, he left the stadium.