Ronaldo eyes exit but who can afford to take big risk?
United icon might not get his wish as European giants settled on strikers
THAT Cristiano Ronaldo wants to leave Manchester United isn’t a huge surprise. Who wouldn’t want to leave a club run as badly as they are?
However, the next bit of the equation is a little trickier. Who will actually want him on wages of £25million a year? Even if United subsidise that, there aren’t many clubs in the world that Ronaldo would consider acceptable who can afford a 37-year-old vanity project.
And despite the fact that the return to Old Trafford had been a thoroughly unhappy reunion, how can new United manager Erik ten Hag actually afford to let him go? The Dutchman has no world-class centre-forwards on which to count and little prospect of signing one.
A well sourced report yesterday delivered the news that confirmed what everyone with eyes could see: the grand project to bring Cristiano home to United has been a failure.
Don’t go back is a maxim for a reason. Signed for around £20m last season on wages of around £500,000 a week, it always felt like this was just an ego trip for outgoing chief executive Ed Woodward, who had always longed to bring back the United icon, maybe as a way of counteracting the hostility he has been subjected to from fans.
And though it always seemed an ill-conceived idea, Ronaldo has done his best to defy gravity and make it work. In the worst Manchester United in living memory for anyone under the age of 40, Ronaldo did score 24 goals, easily their top scorer, 18 of them in the Premier League.
There were even two glorious hat-tricks against Tottenham and Norwich in March and April. But by then United were already a shambles, falling out of serious contention. In the crucial winter months of November, December, January and February, Ronaldo scored just five Premier League goals.
All of which places ten Hag in a quandary. He knows that senior people at United had already concluded that Ronaldo’s return had been a mistake, even before Ralf Rangnick arrived as a manager.
Under the German, the situation deteriorated with the coach unconvinced that the Portuguese could cope with the demands of his pressing system and yet unwilling to drop him. On one of the few occasions that he did tell Ronaldo that he was trying someone else, for the derby against Manchester City in April, Ronaldo decided to fly to Portugal for the weekend to treat a hip flexor issue.
Ronaldo and Rangnick were at odds as to how training was best conducted and some players found the United icon a destabilising presence in the dressing room. And yet they couldn’t live without him as no one else was weighing with goals.
Mason Greenwood was the player United were waiting to mature into the man to lead the line for the next 10 years and, if he were still around, this would be an easier decision to make. However, he will be unavailable for the forseeable future currently on bail having been arrested for rape and assault.
Marcus Rashford is seen as wide payer, Anthony Martial has broadly failed in the role and flopped on loan at Sevilla last season, and Jadon Sancho is also a wide attacker.
United have already missed out on Darwin Nunez to Liverpool. Had they secured him, they might have been happy to drive Ronaldo to the airport in their eagerness to be partially rid of his wages. Yet right now, with Erling Haaland going to Manchester City, Robert Lewandowski in the midst of securing a move to Barcelona, Harry Kane settled at Tottenham, Kylian Mbappé having signed a new deal at Paris Saint-Germain, the best centre-forwards in the world are taken. And even if they weren’t, they would be unlikely to choose United.
The market is extremely limited and United’s forward line is already thin, when you consider the quality Liverpool, City and Spurs have to call upon and the potential that Chelsea have should they complete the signing of Raheem Sterling and Raphina or Ousmané Dembélé.
Tammy Abraham at Roma might be an option for United but the range of clubs suitable for Ronaldo look vanishingly thin. He is said to want to play Champions League football. His agent met new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly last week but Thomas Tuchel, like Ten Hag and Rangnick, wants an energetic mobile striker who can press.
Boehly might enjoy the idea of landing the biggest name in football to announce his arrival but he is leaning heavily on Tuchel for advice and it’s hard to see the German being fooled by a nostalgia trip signing, as Woodward and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were.
Bayern may need a centre-forward when Lewandowski leaves but having just signed Sadio Mané seem unlikely to take on a 37-year-old whose wages would be way beyond what their normal budget.
Neither Inter, AC Milan nor Napoli would have the finances in
Serie A and Juventus would be highly unlikely to take him back.
He is of course, one of the greatest footballers of all time, so it’s hard to say he wouldn’t improve any team. But he’s 37.
Right now, the men of the moment are the likes of Mané and Mo Salah, signing his new Liverpool contract on Friday.
The future is Haaland and Mbappé. Quite where Ronaldo fits in all this is unclear. Most likely it will be locked into a loveless marriage, playing out the last year of his deal at a lame United, because neither party can afford the divorce.