The hazy smoke signals hovering over Cristiano Ronaldo’s purported injury leading to queries by the likes of former United captain Roy Keane over his being left out of Sunday’s Manchester derby wherein United took a dastardly beating has now been cleared up. Apparently the erstwhile Portugal striker had reportedly taken a ‘surprise’ trip to Portugal instead.
Ronaldo had been expected by many to lead the strike for Manchester United against their rivals, but had been left out of the squad by manager Ralf Rangnick due to a hip flexor injury that Old Trafford’s medical department had been concerned about.
However, instead of being on the bench or in the stands to cheer on his teammates, he opted to jet off to his homeland for whatever undisclosed reasons he had, with The Athletic reporting that the trip caught the United dressing room by surprise as the consensus of opinion is that his presence at the Etihad could have been beneficial to his teammates.
The injury itself had been an issue with pundit and former United captain Roy Keane quibbling that the hip flexor injury just didn’t quite add up amid insinuations from various quarters that the manager had chosen to leave the Portuguese out of the squad for the crucial derby.
“There seems to be something more with the Ronaldo situation, the manager coming out talking about his hip flexor but the man is a machine and is rarely injured,” Keane said.
Rangnick had to answer questions about Ronaldo’s injury after the match as Keane had voiced his doubts about Ronaldo’s injury, saying:
“Every now and again he comes out with that about his hip flexor, doesn’t add up to me.”
Rangnick responded by defending Ronaldo’s absence saying that he had to have implicit trust in the advice proffered by his medical team, saying:
“I have to believe our medical department. Our doctor came to me on Friday morning to say Cristiano couldn’t train because of some problems with his hip flexor and the same on Saturday.”