Can Cristiano Ronaldo’s legacy at Manchester United survive him acting the d*ck?

The Mailbox is firmly TeamETH while Cristiano Ronaldo torches his bridges at Man Utd. Also: Steven Gerrard’s replacement, and cooling down Darwin.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

ETH > OGS
My biggest gripe with Ole was the obvious lack of direct coaching. So often that team looked lost, devoid of any composure, and clueless of how to deal with opponents effectively. It’s hard to believe that was only a year ago, and that it only started to improve a few months back.

Against Spurs this United team were thoroughly prepared to beat their opponent. The forwards pressed together as a unit with as many as 6 players high in Spurs half when out of possession. When moving from defence to attack the midfield players knew exactly where they should be to receive a pass and where to play it next. This may sound trivial but effectively and repeatedly transitioning to attack against a well organised team is massive for United. The fullbacks knew when to tuck inside and when to overlap, Fred knew when he should move out of the pivot and when to stay back. On top of all that we won second balls, tackled hard, and didn’t let up for nearly the full 90 minutes.

The coaching and preparation became even more evident in the post match interview with Bruno where he explained how the movement of other players, in this case Antony running through midfield with the ball, affected his responsibilities and his positioning. It was like a student reciting his professor. He also talked about how in some games he won’t see much of the ball because Ten Hag has tasked him to create space and stretch the play with dummy runs. Can you imagine Ole ever telling Bruno to stay away from the ball?

If this is a prelude to where United are headed under Erik then I’m 100% on board for the journey. To think that in a year or two this kind of display might have become the norm is unreal, I cannot wait.

Finally big shout out to Amazon for their excellent coverage. The pundit team especially were great with Henry and Evra joking around, Gabby Logan being utterly charming as always, and especially Roberto Martinez who actually asked interesting tactical questions and raised the level of debate.
Dave, Manchester

Ronaldo sussed
I’m finding it difficult to understand in this age of amateur psychologists, armchair pundits and folks being quite knowledgeable about footy in general that few have twigged that Cristiano Ronaldo has always been like this.

He’s never been a team player no matter what he or anyone says. Yes he’s one of the greatest players of our generation and of all time but no way is he a team player.

Witness his time in Spain where it must have irked him on many occasions when this was made glaringly obvious by Lionel Messi who was able to marry being one of the finest players of all time with being a consummate team player and an inspiration to all of those around him. Yes I prefer Messi but if you want to find it there’s plenty of footage of Ronaldo’s smacked a*se face when he didn’t get his way, his whingeing because he didn’t get a pass & arms thrown petulantly in the air on youtube for all to see.

That being the case, the current behaviour being displayed by him at Man U doesn’t surprise me, it just disappoints me.

He has the perfect opportunity to be a role model and set an example to all of the younger players and fans who pay oodles to see him. But given the size of his overinflated ego this just doesn’t occur to him or even seem possible.

Ten Hag is obviously trying to build something at United and stamp some form of identity on a team that has lost its way for many seasons.

Ronaldo is just another bad egg like Pogba and needs to be let go. His behaviour serves no purpose & is detrimental to the team who seem to have turned a corner quite obviously without him. Now that must hurt.

When he leaves he should also take Fergie with him. Not only did he royally shaft his alleged mate David Moyes he now seems to be intent on hanging around the place like a bad smell. Oh and Harry Maguire is no way near the level required for a club like United. Also, does Ronaldo have something bad on Rio Ferdinand which would explain why he can’t bring himself to stand up and chastise Ronaldo for behaving like a spoiled brat.

I’m a Liverpool fan and whilst I’ve enjoyed the results we had last season we need a Man U that is strong & fighting on all fronts for the good of the Premiership and their fans.

Man U fans, your revolution begins now. Root out the non team players, change the identity of the club as a whole, get everyone subscribing to the new vision and you’ll be fine.

Ronaldo blatantly doesn’t care about you and neither should you about him.

The future is bright…it’ll just be without CR7 that’s all.

Thanks
MCG, London

…As Ronaldo inevitably made it all about him again on Wednesday night. I started to wonder to myself, is he really that much of a Man Utd legend to warrant this sort of stuff.

I mean yes, he was one of the greatest players ever to play the game. And yes, he had one of the greatest seasons of any player to have graced the league in 07-08.

But I thought I’d look a bit further. Because I remember a time when, and Ryan Giggs agreed, Ronaldo was a show pony in an excellent Utd squad.

If you consider stint 1. He was there for 7 seasons. Only 3 did he break into double figures in league goals and all but one of those 7 seasons he played a minimum of 33 games. The other was 29 games.

If we consider those 3 seasons, the first he scored 17 goals in the league. A good return for a winger. But with a lunch break to kill and fasting being observed, I had a look at Wikipedia.

That year Ronaldo scored against:

Fulham x 2
Reading x 3
Bolton x 1
Portsmouth x 1
Everton x 1
Man City x 2
Villa x 3
Wigan x 2
Watford x 1
Spurs x 1

Basically, 5 goals against anyone in the top half. And only 1 deciding goal in all of the 17 he scored. Yes it’s great he was scoring; but in all but one of those games the result was long done. Still he got second in Ballon D’or so can’t have been that bad on the pitch.

It was at the end of that season he started pining for a move to Madrid. So a good season and he’s now making life difficult for the club by openly courting a move to Madrid.

Ferguson stands his ground and gets 2 more seasons out of him. One of them as good as it gets and never taking that away from him.

But if you look at it like this. He’s played for Utd for 7 years when he leaves for Madrid. Had 3 good season and been trying to leave for 2 of those. Basically as soon as he was good enough to play for Madrid, he tried to go there. The other 4 years where he was doing very little he was quiet. Good of him.

Then he comes back with his “this one’s for you Ferguson”, or whatever it was, moment. He scored goals last season but that sort of belies his performances. It’s now sort of acknowledged outside of the CR7 twitter hash tag he was probably holding them back. He promptly started upsetting people and got a manager sacked as well.

This year he’s been rubbish and is now trying to get another manager sacked. But, fortunately for Utd, isn’t doing so well.

So 9 years a Utd player if he finishes the year. 3 good seasons. 3 of them he’s been trying to engineer a move from the club and another two of them basically trying to run the club from the dressing room.

Utd have had some amazing players on their books. And a shed load of them have had their best days in Utd shirts and stayed on and showed the club respect. None of which Ronaldo has managed.

He is a Real Madrid legend. And he had some iconic moments in a Utd shirt. But if I was a Utd fan, I’d remind myself that whilst he did a few great things for the club, he tried to leave the moment he realised he could get the move he wants and has treated the club like muck ever since he returned.

He showed them no loyalty or respect, he deserves none back.
Derek, AFC

Silly GOATs
I’ll be honest, I never really had a horse in the Ronaldo/ Messi comparisons because they were both just insanely talented footballers. But the last few years of CR7’S career choices leave much to the imagination. Did he really think that by turning up he’d change United into world beaters again? Probably. After all the latest bs he has the audacity to say he wants to be a role model for younger players.

At least Messi never left his boyhood club to be paid insane amounts of money by a questionably owned club that is in constant turmoil.

Football is great isn’t it.
Will

United thoughts
Best performance by a mile in a long time by Utd. This wasn’t like the victories over Liverpool and Arsenal where they sat in and hit them on the break, this was a game they controlled from the start with high tempo passing and pressing. Casimero was superb, looks like a Rolls Royce compared to McTominnay in that position. It wasn’t just his covering but also his passing though the lines when he saw an opportunity. Martinez was brilliant again and although I am not a fan of Shaw, it was one of his best games in a Utd shirt. Why does it take competition from Malacia for him to step up.. Rashford should have scored on two occasions but put a good shift in. The only blot on the performance (besides Ronaldo strop) was Sancho (again). He looks like a player that this stage is too big for him and is overwhelmed by it. When in possession he looks nervous as if he is afraid to make a mistake, takes the safe option and his covering isn’t great. Doherty had a great chance in first half when he went past him so easily. Dan James was sold so they could buy him but at the moment i would have James there all day. Hopefully this is the template they must now go forward with. I can’t see a place for Maguire or Wan Bisaka in this team and i am afraid it is time to let Ronaldo go.
Ken, Cork, Ireland

Before Villa swung the axe
I have been one of the many voices for Gerrard out for a while now. But like Liz Truss it is now inevitable.

Project celebrity ex player just hasn’t worked.

Experience next please.
Paul

…The only thing you need to know to explain why Stevie G failed. His ex assistant Michael Beale, hailed as the tactical brains behind it all leaves Villa in the summer to manage QPR – who are now top of the Champo. I think other clubs could do worse than look at great number 2s when scouting for a new manager
Duck

Simmering Stew 
It’s genuinely hilarious watching Arsenal fans preparing open top bus parades in (checks calendar)…October. Right. 🙄
Arsenal have started the season very well no question about that and deserve credit. Of course, we’ve never ever seen an Arsenal teak start the season on fire and….aaaah hold on. 🤔
We’ve seen this movie many times before! The incredible start, the wins, the rising ego of a club that has been an irrelevance in terms of the title for almost two decades, etc etc.

I’m confused – I thought you “cannot compete with oil money”? And that “it isn’t fair Spurs have Son and Kane”? We heard all these excuses last season, the one before that, and the 16 before that. Arsenal fans need to get one thing: their fans aren’t demanding and don’t really care about success. Unless it’s Fake titles such as the “most points in a calendar year” trophy. Etc. Liverpool fans do. ManYoo fans do. Chelski fans do. It’s why they’re all bigger, more successful clubs over the last 20 years.
Arsenal fans can’t seriously go from celebrating their 5th place “achievements” last season (remember? It definitely was NOT a season a failure!)…to bragging about being top in October.

Again – they’re doing well and of course, sing while you’re winning. But this is the whole point with Arsenal’s modern-era fans. I will be here asking questions after the post-WC fixtures (where injuries, packed fixture lists, fatigue and all the old classic excuses will be wheeled out)…whereas Arsenal fans will 100% move goalposts from “we are title challengers” mode to “if you’d offered me 5th place at the start of the season I’d have bitten your hand off”.

They NEVER learn. To be clear: if Arsenal finish within even 10 points of Citeh, I’ll eat my hat. Live on the mailbox with a side of Arteta sauce. Arsenal might scrape 4th place – and if so, congrats. Gonna be wild watching a team that’s spent as much as Arteta has, celebrate what it took Conte to achieve in just a few months and no summer window last season. That my friends, is how low the bar is.
Stewie Griffin (bookmarking every single brag, every excuse and of course, bringing those receipts come May 2023. It’s like they never learned from the embarrassment of Wenger’s final 10 years)

Calm down, Darwin
Ahh Super Man Utd fan Super Sancho is back. The Man Utd version of Barry Fox. As Mr Sancho like’s to take things in context here is some additional context. ETH’s squad may be a squad full of misfits, but it is also the most expensive squad ever assembled that he has at his disposal. His start as manager is decent, and promising. No more no less. We can judge him at the end of the season, but it’s highly likely he won’t match a first season like Rafa Benitez who won a Champions League with an actual squad of mis-fits.

I am enjoying the love that F365 are giving Darwin Nunez and the chaotic way he plays football. Not sure if it’s because he is trying too hard to impress, but last season he was no-where near at frantic in his play. At Anfield for Benfica he was magnificent and seemed a lot calmer and scored a fantastic goal with well placed finish rather than belting everything at full power. His goal at Rangers was more similar, a cool finish. Hopefully he calms down soon and starts playing with a tad less enthusiasm.

With Jota and Diaz out until December, Darwin will certainly start more games and hopefully show what he is about. We will need him to as we start growing into this season. For the first time so far this season, it is looking like we have hopefully shaken off the cobwebs and can start moving up the table. Seeing how bad we started, being 4 points off 4th is really not a big advantage to those above us that we can’t turn around.

Regards
Kevin

ESL fear
Unfortunately if you want an advert for the super league then this week has sent a huge sorry message. Tuesday and Thursday matches were devoid of skill, excitement and “football”. Wednesday I only watched Utd V spurs which was a real match although spurs were poor they still were better than any of the Tuesday & Thursday fare.

Italy, Spain, Germany and France will have the equivalent of Leicester-Leeds etc . Who, in their right minds wouldn’t swap that for Juventus-PSG.

Me for one but if the matches continue to be so sh*t many will be convinced
Tony

Kit themes
As a proud owner of the ‘Ed Sheeran designed’ Ipswich kit I’m very much a sucker for the recent trend to flog more merch by adding tenuous local tie-ins to shirt design.

We’ve had ‘Hacienda’ themed designs for Man City, the original Fiorentina ‘Nazi’ kit (very much ahead of its time given Italian politics) and all sorts of other nonsense such as shirts that reflect the path of the local rivers and profile of local buildings. It’s even said that if you look at a Norwich kit, the threads embedded in the design reflect the local family trees.

But surely West Ham have finally jumped the shark, paying homage to their roots with an away kit featuring the spattered bloodstains of an unfortunate getting stuffed into a meat grinder by an East End heavy.
Quarantino, ITFC, Chairman of the Bored

Bobby Di Matteo
In response to Super Sancho’s challenge to name a better start to a managers EPL career than ETH at Man U:

Di Matteo won the Champions League inside 2 months. How d’ya like them apples?
Jim

Read more: Cristiano Ronaldo and a bunch of other players who really should never have gone back