It’s great to see Ron back at United but forcing the Reds into the move was a stroke of genius by his agent Mendes
CRISTIANO RONALDO is a great signing for Manchester United.
He’ll score goals and sell shirts, and the move makes absolute sense from an emotional perspective.
But when the hype surrounding the prodigal son’s return to Old Trafford dies down, there will be one big red cross next to the transfer.
Because this hasn’t been some elaborate masterplan United and Ronaldo have hatched over the last few weeks.
This is Manchester United Football Club, one of the world’s biggest, being bullied into signing a club legend on the basis that their neighbours were ready to snap him up.
Ronaldo’s agent Jorge Mendes has played an absolute blinder.
Make no mistake, if the player had started the summer as United’s top target, or if he’d wanted to go back there, we’d have known about it well before Friday.
Clever
But there were no whispers at all and, as someone who has been involved in a lot of transfers – and remember I was a British record signing when I joined Liverpool – this
Football’s ultimate maverick sounds off
is where it gets clever from Mendes. The initial soundings he took with United were clearly along the lines of, ‘Sorry, nothing doing here. Cristiano is a club legend and he’ll always be welcome around the place but we’re moving forward into a brave new era’.
So Mendes has gone back and asked his client if he fancied Manchester City.
And when the player has said, ‘Nah’, he’s said, ‘All right, we’ll get them on the hook anyway and see if that brings a tickle from Paris Saint-germain, perhaps Bayern Munich and, you never know, maybe even United’.
It has played out exactly as he thought it would, too, with Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer going to the board at 11:59.59 as far as City were concerned and telling them, ‘He will come here, we just have to ask him’.
What it goes to show is how important the ITKS – In The Knows – who constantly talk to agents are in football these days and how important social media is.
Because some United fans found the idea of him joining City so unpalatable they kicked up such a stink and left the Glazers and Ed Woodward with little choice but to sign him.
That goes to show the impact a hullabaloo can have on poorly-run clubs, which is something United have
There is no reason why footballers should get special treatment when they has a hit song to produce so they can gallivant wherever they like? Football
proved to be under the Glazers. It’s still really about galacticos, ultimately, it’s still about present day, about social media impact and selling shirts as much as about football.
Impacted
Everyone is talking about the fact United can mix and match Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani.
But they have a little gem waiting in the wings there called Mason Greenwood, and how is he going to be impacted?
Is he going to play? The question is, what happens in a year or two if Ronaldo and Cavani are no longer hitting the mark, if they decide to retire or move to Qatar?
Greenwood (left) will have to be blooded a year or two after everybody wanted and what a shame that will be. All that said, I can’t pretend I’m not really looking forward to watching Ronaldo again.
I loved him the first time around at United and, as I’ve always said, he’s the only winner in the Ronaldo v Lionel Messi debate.
At 36, he’s also gone back to Europe’s toughest league... while Messi has gone for a soft landing in France.