SOCCER | MAN UTD
Ronaldo could leave Manchester United this summer
Reports in the UK indicate that Cristiano Ronaldo will not be willing to play in the Europa League and he will ask to leave Man United should the club fail to qualify for the Champions League this season.
Manchester United have suffered a tough start to the 2021-22 season, with their under-fire coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer threading on increasingly thin ice amid a string of bad results and poor performances.
Despite the summer signings of Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane, and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Red Devils are languishing in sixth in the Premier League and would already be out of the Champions League were it not for last gasp goals from CR7 in three consecutive games. But their presence in next season’s edition of Europe’s premier competition is far from a certainty, with the club having already suffered four defeats this season.
The latest defeats against Liverpool (0-5) and Manchester City (0-2) have set off alarm bells regarding the future of Solskjaer, who has been criticized for a lack of tactical astuteness and has reportedly begun to lose the confidence of some members of the dressing room. And if things don’t turn around this season, reports are that the club could lose Ronaldo this summer.
Man United News:
Ronaldo won’t play in Europa League
According to a report by the Express, Ronaldo will not accept playing in the Europa League next season. The Portuguese star, who has already scored nine goals in 13 games, five of them in the Champions League, will ask to leave at the end of this season if United end up in Europe’s second-tier club competition, a tournament in which, incidentally, he has never participated.
His return to Old Trafford was seen as a big boost for United, but, despite his goals this season, it has not translated to overall success results-wise for the Red Devils. If United fail to qualify for the Champions League, 36-year-old Ronaldo could seek a new destination in which to finish his career. In addition, as reported by the Express, Manchester United is "unrecognizable” compared to the club he left in 2009 for Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, one of his former teammates, Rio Ferdinand, recently stated he believed that Ronaldo would see playing in the Europa League as a “stain” on his career.
“He’s more intense now,” Ferdinand told The Athletic. “When you sit with him he is thinking about the little percentages, little details, because he knows he’s in the latter end of his career — he needs to care even more now. That is probably his most important quality, outside of the physical attributes he’s been blessed with. His mindset is unrivaled.”