COMMENT: This isn’t about ability. Nor age. And it certainly isn’t personal. If this situation persists. If Cristiano Ronaldo remains a virtual super-sub at Manchester United. He can only have himself to blame…
After the surprise of Liverpool at Old Trafford on Monday night, another week starting from the bench at Southampton was always going to happen. Erik ten Hag making clear before kick-off at St Mary’s that for him, no individual was above the team: “The team is always the most important and you make the decisions for the advantage of the team.
“I think we have a squad that is quite competitive, so it’s always a difficult decision but as you say we had a really good result on Monday and we will stick with it.”
So like Monday night, it was cameo day for Ronaldo. A super-sub’s role. Grabbing the odd handful of minutes. How that helps make up for an entire missed preseason, only the sports scientists can tell us – and it’s unlikely they’ll have a good answer. But this is no fault of Ten Hag. Ronaldo forced this decision upon him. And really left his manager with no other choice.
As we say, this isn’t personal. Ten Hag isn’t trying to engineer a departure for his No7. He’s not making any deliberate attempts to force Ronaldo to the sidelines. This bench role is about football. Pure football. The plain as day fact is that by missing an entire preseason tour. Then ducking the first week upon the squad’s return. Ronaldo simply held himself back.
The Portuguese is underdone. Both physically in terms of match fitness. But also mentally. No matter the reasons, the decision to skip the tour of Thailand and Australia has meant Ronaldo is a good six weeks behind the rest of the squad in terms of the new manager’s tactics and system.
He’s now playing catch-up. And at the worst time. The midweek games are now upon us. Time on the training pitch will be at a premium. Those opportunities to iron out the kinks between player and manager become more scarce. Ronaldo had six weeks to meet Ten Hag. To speak with the Dutchman. To open himself up to the manager and show that he was ready to work with him. Instead, the Portuguese wrote that all off. There was no face-to-face meeting over the summer. Indeed, it was worse. There was no call from his side. Ronaldo not shaking hands with Ten Hag until that famous day earlier this month as he drove into Carrington for the first time in preseason not on his own, but flanked by Jorge Mendes, his agent.
Ten Hag would love to have a fully fit, fully committed, Ronaldo to call on. The attempt to prise Marko Arnautovic away from Bologna wasn’t done to pad out his squad. Ten Hag wants an aggressive, mobile centre-forward to lead his line. His system needs it. The Austrian would have arrived as a readymade stop-gap. He’d played for Ten Hag before. He knows what he requires from his players. And he’d completed a full preseason under Sinisa Mihajlovic. It was a needs-must move by Ten Hag, though Bologna ultimately refused to co-operate.
At 33, Ten Hag knew Arnautovic is no world-beater. But this is a ‘sum of the parts’ team situation. His system is better with a recognised centre-forward leading the line. It always has been.
And this is why Ten Hag has never encouraged the idea of Ronaldo leaving. In public, he’s been steadfast. He wants Ronaldo at the head of his formation. But it must be a fully fit and committed Ronaldo.
And to be fair, the latter remains a reality. There’s no questioning Ronaldo’s professionalism or commitment. At least not now that he’s back involved with the squad. But he’s losing this catch-up game. And Ten Hag cannot afford to carry the 37 year-old with his own neck on the line.
Those claims of multiple rejections as Mendes has hawked his name across Europe are correct – though with a qualifier. The terms involved are one factor. But the clubs contacted by Mendes also know there’s little enthusiasm from United’s end to see a deal done.
It’s why Mendes has made an attempt with Robert Calenda to setup an exchange involving Victor Osimhen and Ronaldo at Napoli. There was confirmation from Luciano Spalletti, the Napoli coach, that he’d raised the idea with president Aurelio de Laurentiis in the latter half of last week: “If you’re asking me if I’d like to work with Ronaldo, I tell you no coach would say no to that.
“Speaking to (President Aurelio) De Laurentiis, he told me that he received no offer, so let’s remain as realistic as possible here and take into consideration only things that could happen.”
Indeed, Spalletti left the door open, essentially throwing the ball into Osimhen’s court: “Osimhen is the one who has to be the protagonist there. With a player like Osimhen, who is so talented, we know there is the permanent risk that some rich owner around the world will wake up in the morning and decide to buy him and that includes a club like Manchester United.”
At United’s side, a like-for-like replacement could be attractive. Though the terms raised by Mendes to get the deal done are unlikely to be accepted: €100m down for Osimhen and a free transfer for Ronaldo.
Mendes has no mandate from United. He’s working on his own. This really was a deal to put to the two clubs at the beginning of July. Not in the final days of August. And not in this time of Financial Fair Play.
The lack of discretion from Mendes this summer has hurt Ronaldo. It’s knocked his reputation. And whether there was advice offered or not, there should’ve been an insistence from Ronaldo’s management team that he commit to his new manager over the summer while work was done behind the scenes to find him a new club.
Instead, we have what we see today. An underdone Ronaldo. A virtual Manchester United super-sub. And he can only have himself to blame…
