The partnership between Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo has ended with immediate effect. The club of coach Erik ten Hag says this in a statement.
Manchester United says that it has been decided “by mutual agreement” to end the cooperation. The club thanks the Portuguese “for his enormous contribution during two periods at Old Trafford in which he scored 145 goals in 346 appearances”. The club also wishes him the best in the future.
Ronaldo had made himself impossible at The Red Devils after he was no longer a permanent force in the team under Ten Hag. On October 19, things went wrong. Manchester United played one of the best games of the season against Tottenham Hotspur without Ronaldo, after which Ten Hag asked him to come on three minutes before the end. Ronaldo shook his head and walked off the field. “He did that on purpose, to lure me out,” Ronaldo said afterwards in an interview with Piers Morgan.
In the same interview, Ronaldo made short work of Manchester United and Ten Hag. “Ten Hag has no empathy. You don’t ask someone who has won everything to play for three minutes. That is unacceptable. And Ten Hag says he loves me in the media, but that’s just for the stage. One hundred percent. I don’t respect him because he doesn’t respect me either,” said 37-year-old Ronaldo.
Ronaldo had one more season until the end of the current season at Manchester United. “I feel like the club wants to get rid of me,” Ronaldo said in the same interview. “Not just the coach, but also the other two or three men in power within the club. People need to know the truth. Yes, I feel betrayed and abandoned. I feel they don’t want me here. I noticed that last season. I feel like I’m being made the black sheep, the player they blame all the problems on.
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