Solskajer: Ronaldo’s return could not be refused. It looked so great, but it didn’t turn out well

Summer 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo is out of Juventus and looking for a new job. It already looked like he would end up at Manchester City when Manchester United stepped in and brought the Portuguese back. But Ole Gunnar Solskjaer remembers where it broke down.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United seemed like a dream come true. In the very first game after the Portuguese’s arrival, Newcastle were at Old Trafford.

Ronaldo opened the scoring in the first-half set-up and when the visitors equalised in the second half, the Portuguese gave United back the lead after six minutes. The Red Devils eventually won 4-1.

At that moment, no one doubted that Ronaldo’s return was a bad move. The “lost son” continued to score goals, eventually scoring 18 in the Premier League and six in the Champions League. But team-wise, things weren’t going well.

“It was very difficult to refuse Cristiano’s return. I felt I had to take it, but in the end it didn’t go well,” Solskjaer said in an interview with The Athletic.

“It looked so right when he signed. And the first game against Newcastle, he scored twice. Old Trafford was shaking at the foundations, ” the former United coach added.

The previous season Solskjaer finished second in the Premier League and reached the Europa League final. The arrival of Ronaldo was supposed to be the key to jumping up a notch. But in the end, the exact opposite happened.

“When you have a group of players, you need them all going in the same direction. But when things don’t go according to plan, you see the egos of some become detached from the others. Theegos of the players cost me my position,” says Nor.

All was not well in the Manchester United cabin. Solskjaer, without naming names directly, said some players did not want to wear the captain’s armband, others refused to train to force a transfer. And as it seems, even Erik ten Haga hasn’t managed to clean the cabin yet.

Source: The Athletic