Ronaldo risks becoming Man Utd's Dembele
Ben Jacobs
- Updated: 14 Jul 2022 08:10 BST
- 3 min read
Cristiano Ronaldo’s stance at Manchester United as he tries to push for a move away from the club has similarities to what Ousmane Dembele has tried to do at Barcelona in recent months, CBS reporter Ben Jacobs writes for FootballTransfers.
Ronaldo has not returned to pre-season training with the Red Devils this summer, with the official line that he is missing for personal reasons. However, this comes at a period when it is known that he is unhappy with the club and his communication as to if and when he might return has been poor. This could be one of the reasons he is struggling to find a club.
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It reminds me of Dembele a bit, even though it’s a strange comparison. When you get a player trying to force the issue this aggressively on their own terms with a superpower agent, it can put off suitors. You can almost see in this maverick approach warning signs of what the player might be like.
I’m not saying that Ronaldo and Dembele are like for like in terms of personality or that they’re like for like parallels in terms of what’s happened.
Dembele, even though he will, in all likelihood, re-sign at Barcelona, he tried his luck, pushed for wages. Barcelona weren’t having any of it. He left them hanging, there was no communication, it was acrimonious at times. Eventually, he ended up a free agent. When he was a free agent, no one else made him a formal offer.
One of the reasons for that was that everyone’s seen for the last six months the kind of character that Dembele is. Even though we only see it from the outside in, it’s perhaps a warning sign. Is this player going to be a bad egg?
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Ronaldo would be a bad egg: he’s a global superstar and with global superstar status, comes that hunger, swagger and ego that makes you feel – justifiably very often – that you should be integral to everything. You should be the most vocal voice in the dressing room, you should be the first name on the teamsheet, you should be the man the team is built around. And that’s fine.
I certainly wouldn’t call Ronaldo a bad egg, but he comes with problems, and watching him force his way out of Manchester United would be a warning sign to certain clubs who just don’t want to take on board the circus – even if the circus brings 20+ goals.
That’s why Ronaldo has such a challenge at the moment. He has to find a club that’s the right fit. And he has to be sure that it doesn’t get so acrimonious that it overshadows Manchester United’s pre-season and then he still ends up back there.
