All about Cristiano
A wobbly win at Wolves was overshadowed by a player who was only present as a cardboard cut-out
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: Wolves 0, United 1
If this match had been a movie, it would have been called The Man Who Wasn’t There. The main topic of conversation was Cristiano Ronaldo. The singing from the away end was all about Cristiano Ronaldo. The cameras kept finding a cardboard cut-out of Cristiano Ronaldo. Everyone was thinking about Cristiano Ronaldo, whether he’s still got it, and where he will fit into this team. The day should have belonged to Raphael Varane, a top-class player making his United debut. He finished with a clean sheet (partly thanks to a fine block of his) and even an assist (a crisp, simple ball to Mason Greenwood in space on the right). He oozed calm assurance and looked like what he’s been signed to be – United’s answer to Virgil van Dijk. Yet he was an invisible superstar, upstaged by someone who wasn’t in the country, let alone on the pitch.
The same was true, only more so, of Jadon Sancho, who was making his first United start. Playing in the position Ronaldo has occupied more than any other, coming in off the left, he had a few neat touches in the opposition box, but the closest he came to making his mark on the match was when he had a near-fatal touch in his own box. He played a header to Luke Shaw that was more like a hospital pass – square, towards danger, and too soft. After that, Sancho rather disappeared; he could well have been substituted earlier than the 71st minute. United had two wingers in this match, and yet they had none. All the dribbling was done by Adama Traore, who imposed himself on the game with his hustle, bustle and muscle.
That was one of a dozen United blunders that went unpunished. For a team securing a record sequence of 28 unbeaten away games in the league, they haven’t half been erratic. They kept allowing Wolves to put together good moves with bad endings. Traore was playing like the rich man’s Dan James, all pace and no end product. A couple of times not even Wolves could miss the target, but they were thwarted by two great saves, one from David de Gea, the other, less predictably, from Aaron Wan-Bissaka, acting as the sweeper behind the keeper. In the first half, before Paul Pogba remembered how to run the show from midfield, United were sloppy, disjointed and slack. It was if they were distracted by something. What on earth can that have been?
A win is a win and for the second week running, United were grateful to Greenwood. Without his killer instinct they would have one point to show for their two away games this season, rather than four. For a teenager, he is taking on a load of responsibility. And now he finds himself in the strange position of competing for a place not just with two slightly older stars, Sancho and Marcus Rashford, but two downright elderly ones, Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani. Ronaldo scored his first senior goal in October 2002, six days after Greenwood’s first birthday. At 19, Greenwood is a far better marksman than Ronaldo was at the same stage. He hits the ball hard, early, with either foot, and usually low: yes, Jose Sa should have saved that one, but the error was partly induced by Greenwood’s predatory precision. Even his misses are often impressive, as when, put through by that sublime flick from Bruno Fernandes, he managed a clean strike from a tight angle and got it within a foot of the far post. However big the names around him, Greenwood should now be inked into the team sheet until he needs a rest, which won’t happen for a while as he’s not in the England squad.
The conversation comes back, inevitably, to Ronaldo. Is he a good signing? The heart says yes, of course he is: he’s coming home, he couldn’t be allowed to sign for City (if that was ever a real prospect), his mere presence will light up Old Trafford, and he will score goals in the sort of games, like yesterday’s, where United struggle to dominate modest opponents. The head, though, can’t help having a few doubts. He’s older than Wayne Rooney, albeit in rather different shape. He’s not the missing piece in the jigsaw (that’s Declan Rice, or, in our dreams, N’Golo Kante). If United had signed Cavani this summer rather than last, we would think they were crazy to go for Ronaldo too. His return leaves them so spoilt for choice that there will be even more of an onus on selection, which is hardly Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s strong point. It makes Anthony Martial redundant as well as James (quick, sell them both!). At Wolves, even without Ronaldo in the squad, Solskjaer managed to have three men on the bench who play in much the same position – Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata and Donny van de Beek – and, because he’d wasted a starting place on James, he ended up using none of them. “Cristiano was not signed to sit on the bench,” Solskjaer said afterwards. What, and van de Beek was? The signings of Varane and Sancho were exemplary, logical, the work of a club with a plan. The move for Ronaldo has nothing to do with the plan: it’s all about the man. And yet we can’t help being excited. Has anyone got a spare ticket for the Newcastle game?