Let Ronaldo go
United have an identity again, and he just doesn't fit in (though he'd make a decent sub)
Cristiano Ronaldo, reporters keep saying, has become a big headache for Erik ten Hag. He wants to leave United, he missed the pre-season tour, he even missed part of the one game he appeared in. But this is not a headache: it’s a godsend.
United’s new boss has seized the chance to assert his authority, saying it’s ‘unacceptable for everyone’ (crafty of him to note that it wasn’t just Ronaldo) to leave before the end of a game they have played in. The no-show in Australia had already allowed him to stick Ronaldo on the bench for the game against Brighton this weekend. The walk-out from the Rayo Vallecano game frees him to go a step further. Ronaldo has gone out of his way to show that he’s not a team player. It would be better for all concerned to let him go.
A handful of sports stars are so famous that they twist people’s judgment out of shape, and Ronaldo is one of them. Otherwise sensible pundits point to his 24 goals last season and ask how United are going to replace them. But that’s not how sport works. Every good team is greater than the sum of its parts. United scored more goals per game in 2020/21, before Ronaldo rejoined them, than in 2021/22 when he was there, and they have been scoring more again since he went AWOL.
In the space of a few weeks, Ten Hag has transformed the way they play. He’s got them pressing and sprinting and exchanging quick short passes. Ronaldo can do only one of those things, at most. United have an identity again, and he just doesn’t fit in – either with his style of play, or with his personality.
Calling himself ‘the king’ the other day was an awful move, the sign of an elderly superstar stamping his foot and turning into a six-year-old. If he believes a football club is a monarchy, he is sorely mistaken. It is a republic, and the president is the manager.
United should try to get a fee for Ronaldo – according to Transfermarkt, he’s worth £27m, or slightly less than Scott McTominay. He could be a useful makeweight as they search for a midfielder to replace Frenkie de Jong, who obviously doesn’t want to move to Manchester. And if there are really no takers for Ronaldo, United should be willing to release him from his contract, because he costs about £26m a year in wages – plus an untold amount in wasted time and energy.
For the moment, as they look for a buyer, he can stay on the bench. He has it in him to be a super-sub, sticking away that one late chance, facing defenders exhausted by trying to keep up with Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho. He’ll be better than any of them at tucking into the delicious crosses that Christian Eriksen will be dishing up. His goals-per-90 will remain high. Alongside him on the bench, to remind him that there are other fish in the sea, should be one of Charlie McNeill and Joe Hugill – both prolific goalscorers for the Under-18s, and both, at nearly 19, older than Rashford was when he broke through in 2016.
Ten Hag just needs to take Ronaldo aside for a man-to-man-chat and tell him all this. ‘Cristiano,’ he should say, ‘there’s a great opportunity here. If you play your cards right, you can be the next Alessia Russo.’
Tim de Lisle writes about sport for The Guardian. If you’re on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.