Jorge Mendes is 1 for 1 with his strategy. If it doesn't work this time you'd have a point. When crunch time arrives teams make panic buys & sales for the sake of their sporting project. Ronaldo is a shiny toy.
Juventus wanted to get rid of Ronaldo's wages because it suffocated them financially & they couldn't make any big new signings. Manchester City lost out on Harry Kane. Yes, Manchester City wanted him for free, on a wage cut and it probably would've happened if Manchester United didn't step in.
Manchester United wants to give Ten Hag a clean slate for a rebuild and Ronaldo stands in the way because of his status both in and outside the dressing room. Next few weeks will reach a boiling point in my opinion and a club like Chelsea could step in if their Aubameyang chase doesn't materialize.
Anything can happen.
Grounding opinion on a sample of one is the epitome of small sample bias. The important thing is that circumstances are significantly different, and transfers don't depend solely on the whims on any one person. In the previous example all three parties with interest conspired to make a transfer happen. Now it's just the one party desperate to leave, with no takers and no willing sellers.
That United deem Ronaldo as "standing in the way" is baseless conjecture. If anything, what little indicators we have show exactly the opposite. The manager has spoken about the player in the most glowing terms (that exceed mere platitudes), and in addition to that, United made no moves to find a replacement (until a couple of days ago). Surely, if it was planned to ship him out, we would have pursued a striker from the get go.
I fear he stays, it just looks like the most likely scenario.