ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL RONALDO IS TEN HAG’S BEST ASSISTANT COACH
ERIK TEn Hag did not send on Cristiano Ronaldo as a substitute in last Sunday’s drubbing by Manchester City ‘out of respect’ for the five-time Ballon d’Or winner.
Fair enough, but saving an all-time great for Thursdaynight duty against some honest, but hapless minnows from Cyprus must also jar a little.
Ronaldo (below) will almost certainly be back on the bench for today’s Premier League match at Goodison Park. Never mind, though, he will be back to try his luck against plucky Omonia Nicosia on Thursday.
Who would ever have had Ronaldo marked down as a Europa League specialist?
And when TV pundits Roy Keane and Graeme Souness suggest Ronaldo should have been allowed to leave and is now being treated with ‘disrespect’, you get where they are coming from.
Keane claimed there was a handful of clubs who would have taken Ronaldo, but others claim that only Al Hilal, of Saudi Arabia, were serious suitors.
And, apparently, there is now a feeling at Old Trafford that there will not be a queue of suitable pursuers in the January transfer window.
In other words, Cristiano is staying put for the entire duration of the final year of his contract.
Cristiano staying put will mean Cristiano will continue to be the centre of a lot of attention.
But here’s a thing.
What if those of us – and there were a lot of us – were wrong when suggesting Ronaldo would be an unhealthy distraction for Ten Hag, should he be kept?
What if those of us – and there were a lot of us – were wrong when suggesting Ronaldo might throw his toys out of the pram when faced with the prospect of being a back-up player?
Because, from what we hear from the United training complex, Ronaldo is nothing but ultra-professional.
As he has always been.
One of the significant things about the win in Cyprus on Thursday night was how Ronaldo’s team-mates were desperate for him to get that 700th goal in club football.
As it should be, their utter respect for him remains undiluted.
And ask Robbie Savage, whose son Charlie has graduated from the academy ranks, about Ronaldo’s influence on the younger United players and the response is emphatically positive.
Ironically, what the match in Nicosia also showed is that Ten Hag is probably right when he prefers others to Ronaldo for the high-octane tempo of the Premier League, although that decision is still a hugely contentious one.
But when United are not being humiliated, when a game is tight, Ronaldo must be a brilliant option.
Now he looks set for the season, the bottom line is that United, Ten Hag and Ronaldo must find a way of making this situation work for the best interests of the club.
Now he looks set for the season, Ten Hag has to tap into Ronaldo’s experience, tap into influence on other players, tap into his reading of games.
The idea of Ronaldo ever being an assistant manager is amusing – what manager would have one of the biggest-ever footballing names on his shoulder?
They all know how that ends up.
But if he would buy into it – and, again, from everything we are hearing out of Old Trafford, there is no reason to think he would not – there is no reason why Ten Hag cannot use Ronaldo as an unofficial assistant coach, an unofficial player-coach.
Because, for all the stuff about his histrionics and ego, there can be few current players better qualified to help others than Cristiano Ronaldo is.