He's still great, should take him back again, he'll be well rested after his stint of relaxation and recovery playing in the Saudi league, he has 3 or 4 years left at the top.
Cristiano vs Ten Hag
- Thread starter NewGlory
- Start date
Ronaldo at his age was not a long term option imo. It seems that ten hag wasn't either but in the short term ten hag got you 3rd which is one of uniteds best seasons since ferguson left. Imo backing ten hag was the right thing to do.
That final paragraph made me cringe so much. I’ll say one thing for our former number 7, he attracts a unique breed of super fan.
This. He was a corrosive influence in the squad who was unprofessional, on top of his clear deficiencies on the pitch. He undermined the authority of the manager repeatedly - leaving the stadium early twice - against Rayo Vallecano in a friendly and despite being warned, he took it a step further and refused to come on against Spurs and left the stadium early. No one needs reminding of that horrible interview with Piers either. He was at a junction in his career where his considerable on and off field baggage far outweighed the relatively limited goal threat (relative to his peak) that he provided on the pitch. One of the worst mistakes United committed over the past decade or so, which is saying something.
Mathematically incorrect.
Ten Hag was spot on getting rid of Ronaldo after the way he behaved after that Spurs game (a win that probably delivered one of our best performances for years).
Bringing Ronaldo back was a mistake. For all the goals he scored in 21/22, the team suffered trying to make room for him.
Bringing Ronaldo back was a mistake. For all the goals he scored in 21/22, the team suffered trying to make room for him.
Utterly terrible signing. A superannuated 500+ goals striker on high wages... we already had one of them, and the awesome Cavani was shoved to the side to make way for millions of Likes.
My main memory of his second period at United is seeing Ronaldo and Fernandes flapping their arms around in complaint somewhere around the halfway line as another goal was walked into the net 50 yards from them.
It would be nice to be proved wrong once in a decade about a United signing you thought was a shite idea at the time but worked out very well.
My main memory of his second period at United is seeing Ronaldo and Fernandes flapping their arms around in complaint somewhere around the halfway line as another goal was walked into the net 50 yards from them.
It would be nice to be proved wrong once in a decade about a United signing you thought was a shite idea at the time but worked out very well.
He clearly and most absolutely was done, at the top level.
Bringing him back is one of our biggest mistakes since SAF retired. The most Woodward social media metric signing we have ever done.
Wrong.
I believe United only stepped in and signed Ronaldo is because there were rumours of him going to City.
It’s like opening a geography debate with “it is now clear that the Earth is flat”.
Getting rid of Ronaldo was one of the very few things Ten Hag got right
We were noticeably worse with him on the pitch. Rather than strengthen the positions of need, we went for nostalgia in fear of City getting him, which was never really going to happen anyway.
Zlatan's second spell at Milan was the example to follow, unfortunately he's too narcissistic to embrace that role.
Can't stand him and his theatrics. Glad he left.
The time since he left has only made it all the clearer that he was done at the top level. Bringing him back was an awful decision, but actively building around him would have been insane. You don't build teams around no-future players.
And on top of that, he behaved like an egotistical asshole.
And on top of that, he behaved like an egotistical asshole.
He looked like he was wading through 3 feet of water.
We saw this also happen here in his first season mid way through where he slowed up massively. I don't think being back in the PL was a good move.
We saw this also happen here in his first season mid way through where he slowed up massively. I don't think being back in the PL was a good move.
I think too many people get hung up on his first season goals, the second season was atrocious. There was blooper reels everywhere during that second season, video of him standing around with everyone else around him pressing and trying to do his job also, and then there is the Cavani video, where he gives up, Cavani runs it down and then he wants him to pass it to him.
It's hard because he was put on a pedestal by me during his first stint before Madrid and I did not want him back but got caught up in the nostalgia of it all. It really jaded me on him and then he pulled that stunt with Trump and then FIFA magically waived his suspension for the World Cup. Feck HIM!!
It's hard because he was put on a pedestal by me during his first stint before Madrid and I did not want him back but got caught up in the nostalgia of it all. It really jaded me on him and then he pulled that stunt with Trump and then FIFA magically waived his suspension for the World Cup. Feck HIM!!
This!!!!!
ETH had to deal with something that wasn’t his mess. Oles football started to decline once Ronaldo came, he always has to play, everything goes through him, he is a huge presence.. on and off the pitch.
ETH had to make the hard decisions and Ronaldo didn’t like it and threw a mammoth sized strop. ETH took the fire for it when it wasn’t really his mess to deal with in the first place.
ETH had to make the hard decisions and Ronaldo didn’t like it and threw a mammoth sized strop. ETH took the fire for it when it wasn’t really his mess to deal with in the first place.
Are you just basing this off of the Saudi League without regard for him holding current Portugal back?
Also any club in Europe could've signed him after he was granted his release.
I think it says it all that none, not even in Portugal, bothered to
Awful signing and only his fanboys think we should have kept him
If we're judging strikers solely on output, Ronaldo would surely be amongst the top 5-10 strikers in the Premier League, even today.
He'd score more than any striker we've had since, well....Ronaldo.
So by that metric alone, he is good enough to play at the highest level still.
Would he make our team better though? Probably not.
He'd score more than any striker we've had since, well....Ronaldo.
So by that metric alone, he is good enough to play at the highest level still.
Would he make our team better though? Probably not.
I think that’s more to do with his extortionate wages, I’m pretty sure no team in Europe could afford his wages, Saudi was his only option for that.
If Ronaldo came out and said I’m going to play for 75k a week then there would’ve been literally hundreds of teams lining up to sign him.
He was done at top level.
Letting him go was the right decision but letting him go for free, in hindsight was a bad idea. We could have actually got a fee for him from one of the Saudi clubs.
This is not entirely true. There were clubs in Europe who wanted him. The problem was none wanted to pay his salary demands and absolutely none would even consider anything near how much Saudis paid him. And he is a greedy bastard. Otherwise, of course clubs in Portugal wanted him, they just couldnt afford him
So your claim is exaggerated. It is, however, true thag none of the big, Champions League clubs wanted him. And even though Chelsea owner wanted him, Tuchel did block his transfer
So while your statement is somewhat right in spirit, it is too dramatic in reality
And that was AFTER United return fiasco and his train wreck of the interview with Piers. Things were quite different when he was re-signing for us. Were there not rumors some of our rivals, including City wanting him?
His interview forced United'a hand. It was so horrible that United had to let him go immediately and nobody but Saudi would realistically touch that stinky bag of hot potatoes of the situation
Without that interview things could have been quite different and EtH may not have even been able to force him out. The Erik and club preferred to keep him on the bench
Reality is that at the highest level which the PL is Ronaldo was done and the only reason we signed him was the commercial appeal and to stop him going to City, it wasn’t a case of us wanting him before or him fitting into the way we wanted to play.
The second Ronaldo signed it threw the entire front line off balance as everyone had to play in a way to accommodate Ronaldo which at the time saw us looking the best going forward we’d done in a long time with Rashford, Bruno, Martial, Greenwood, Cavani, Lingard and Pogba which was fluid and played to our strengths at the time.
Our problem at that time was we kept trying to copy or one up City as we went all in for Ronaldo, Fred, Maguire and Sanchez due to City being in for them rather than focusing on our own identity so for me as much as I loved Ronaldo first time round for us he should NOT have been re-signed and for ETH was right on that decision.
The second Ronaldo signed it threw the entire front line off balance as everyone had to play in a way to accommodate Ronaldo which at the time saw us looking the best going forward we’d done in a long time with Rashford, Bruno, Martial, Greenwood, Cavani, Lingard and Pogba which was fluid and played to our strengths at the time.
Our problem at that time was we kept trying to copy or one up City as we went all in for Ronaldo, Fred, Maguire and Sanchez due to City being in for them rather than focusing on our own identity so for me as much as I loved Ronaldo first time round for us he should NOT have been re-signed and for ETH was right on that decision.
I always found it strange that nobody on this forum objected to signing him when it was known about and available to everyone what happened in Las Vegas. We know what she alleged and we do know for a fact he paid her a large sum of money to keep quiet.
If he had been happy to stay as a squad player and be an elder statesman figure for the younger players in the team, that could have worked.
He'd have been a great player to bring on for the last 20-30 minutes of a game against a team we were struggling to break down, because despite his declining athleticism, there's no better player in the world for sniffing out a goal opportunity out of nowhere.
However, he wanted to be the main man, and play every minute of every game, and have every other player do his running for him. And when Ten Hag refused to indulge him, he went crying to Piers Morgan.
He'd have been a great player to bring on for the last 20-30 minutes of a game against a team we were struggling to break down, because despite his declining athleticism, there's no better player in the world for sniffing out a goal opportunity out of nowhere.
However, he wanted to be the main man, and play every minute of every game, and have every other player do his running for him. And when Ten Hag refused to indulge him, he went crying to Piers Morgan.
This is excellent ragebait to be fair. Well done for not spoiling anything in the title, leaving just enough room for curiosity to get the better of people.
Ronaldo wanted to leave Juve, and Juve were quite happy to sell him to get his wages off their books, but no clubs showed any real interest that transfer window. It was only in the final few days of the window after City realised that Kane wouldn't be happening that they went for Ronaldo instead. In hindsight it probably would have just been for one season to tide them over until Haaland was available. We then moved for him ourselves, with it always feeling that it was largely because we didn't want somebody with his history at the club to ruin that history by going to our rival (and he chose us for the same reason).
So even at the beginning of 21/22 there was little interest in him. By the end of that season when he was trying to leave us there was none at all (bar the non-footballing people that had just taken over Chelsea, who then backed off when their manager didn't want him). It was actually a bit embarrassing watching his agent fly around Europe in desperation while multiple clubs made it very clear that they weren't interested. Then a few months later when his performances had been absolutely terrible combined with the increasingly unprofessional behaviour, I don't think there was anybody even rumoured to be interested once he was available on a free.
If Ronaldo was willing to drop his wage massively AND accept a squad role, I'm sure a couple of large European clubs would have been interested. But he clearly wasn't willing to do either.
I mean... Ronaldo's signing basically ended the Ole good times. So it's hardly an ETH exclusive thing, he just pointed it out.
He left because he wanted to leave. Everything else was an excuse to facilitate him leaving
He was the reason Ole got sacked, which is the fault of Ole.
He wasn't what we needed moving forward as a team.
Granted, he scored, but when he left us we were in a much worse position than when he joined.
In regard to EtH...nobody is bigger than the manager and club.
As soon as he started to throw his toys from the pram, he was done.
I sort of remember him being a squeaky wheel in a good way while he was here -- being astonished how the facilities being allowed to decline, trying to push the other players to work on their fitness (that sounds 'elder statesman' right?).
He'd worked with the best managers there are and probably instantly saw right thru Ten Hag. I've always wondered how many people in the business knew about the (alleged) scam that Ten Hag was running wrt player acquisition.
Ten Hag was a crap manager but he was spot on to try and move on from Ronaldo.
Ronaldo acted incredibly unprofessionally because his massive ego was hurt. He had also been absolutely bang average in the minutes he was given that season, which was loads by the way.
Was delighted he left. Ten Hag was 100% in the right with Ronaldo and Sancho both.
Load of nonsense.
Ronaldo acted incredibly unprofessionally because his massive ego was hurt. He had also been absolutely bang average in the minutes he was given that season, which was loads by the way.
Was delighted he left. Ten Hag was 100% in the right with Ronaldo and Sancho both.
Load of nonsense.