Former Manchester United great and pundit Gary Neville has offered his view that unless Cristiano Ronaldo changes his game, he would risk not starting every match next campaign.
Despite continuing to fire on all-fronts for the Red Devils and even convincingly slamming home a hat-trick in their most recent 3-2 home win over Tottenham on Saturday, hence becoming football’s all-time top scorer, Ronaldo, 37, was unable to follow up on his form in the team’s big match up against Atletico Madrid at the Theater of Dreams and totally bombed out, with United again booted out of the Champions League.
As it now stands in the official FIFA records, Ronaldo’s new total of 807 goals saw him eclipse Josef Bican’s previous record of 805 to stand alone as the game’s greatest goalscorer.
Be that as it may, United legend Neville is insistent the Portugal international needs to adopt a different strategy and change his game should he want to feature in every game next season under United’s new manager, whoever that may turn out to be.
“I’m unsure, it depends who the manager is and what the project is for the new manager. Does he want to build a young squad that’s athletic and progressive? Ronaldo can play in that – but if he wants to play every single week, which would seem to be the case, then it may be that the manager wants a fresh start.
“He might want young players that are basically pressing high from the front and can create high level of play in that way.
“If he wants to play in a different way and can accept that he will have a great goalscorer in the team who is basically someone who has basically been the greatest goalscorer of all time then yes there will be a position for him.
“But I think it would have to be a Ronaldo that would accept that he wouldn’t play every single week and there would be moments that he wouldn’t play and I think that’s the big thing.
“He doesn’t seem to take that too well, which is a good thing, he’s obviously driven and wants to play every single match. But I’m 50-50, and I’m not just 50-50 from a point of view of whether the club wants to keep him but whether Cristiano wants to stay in Manchester and play at the club sort of into his 38th and 39th year.”
Rumors have been rife and on the increase especially of late that Ronaldo can’t wait to leave the club at the end of the current campaign now that United has again failed to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
The Red Devils have not won a trophy since 2017, and this season it’s almost a foregone conclusion that this season would again be a total disappointment in this endeavor again. As such, this year is likely to be the Portugal international’s first without silverware for 12 years.
The latest news is that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner would not be bailing out end of this season and is hopeful the club bring in the right appointment when Rangnick moves into his consultancy role in the summer.