Ex-Man Utd star slams Ten Hag over latest example of Ronaldo ‘disrespect’

Will Ford
Cristiano Ronaldo is consoled by Erik ten Hag

Erik ten Hag has been criticised for “disrespecting” Cristiano Ronaldo again, by another one of CR7’s former Manchester United teammates.

Ronaldo failed to find a suitor this summer having made it clear to United that he wanted to leave the club, turning up to preseason far later than the rest of the squad.

The Portugal international has since been used sporadically by Ten Hag, with the Dutch boss insisting he needed time to get back to full fitness.

Ronaldo has started just two Premier League games this term, including the 0-0 draw with Newcastle on Sunday, but even that game illustrated the “disrespect” the manager has for his striker, according to Louis Saha.

Saha told Boyle Sports (via Mirror): “Ronaldo has been disrespected. I have not fully agreed with the management of Ten Hag. I can understand why Ronaldo was upset after the Newcastle game because he trusts himself to score, lately, he has not been as lucky and efficient, it happens, and people need to realise he is not a robot.

“When people are tired, Ronaldo is a killer, there is no one better than him when you are under pressure to score important goals, he did it last year and there is no reason for him not to continue that this season. I have not seen any indication physically that shows he’s slowing down.”

Ten Hag defending his decision to take off Ronaldo, stating: “We have to recover four games in 10 days and especially for the strikers, I want to keep them fresh. I want to keep them all fresh, we have to rotate because of some problems we have. [Anthony] Martial is not available in this moment, then Rashy [Marcus Rashford] was not well, so he did not have energy for the whole game. We had to plan to cover for the four games because we want to win or at least get a result in all four games.”

Pundits claimed after the game that Ronaldo would have gobbled up the two clear-cut chances the Red Devils had after he had been taken off.

Asked whether he thought that would have been the case, Ronaldo said: “We beat them in the midfield and we created chances. They gave everything they had, individually and team-wise and deserved winning because we created the chances. We missed two huge chances – we could, and should, have scored the winning goal.”

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