Rangnick scuppered Ronaldo Chelsea transfer
FT Desk
- 28 Aug 2022 08:52 BST
- 3 min read
Cristiano Ronaldo might have been a Chelsea player had his former Manchester United manager Ralf Rangnick not put a word in Thomas Tuchel's ear.
Chelsea have been looking for a forward all summer with Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner allowed to return to Inter Milan and RB Leipzig respectively, while Ronaldo is desperate to find a club in the Champions League, with United having failed to qualify last season.
New Chelsea owner Todd Boehly was reportedly interested in building the Chelsea attack around the Portuguese superstar, but his manager cooled on the idea after speaking to his good friend Rangnick, who managed Ronaldo at Old Trafford last season.
Jorge Mendes trying to get Ronaldo out of Manchester 🚜 pic.twitter.com/Q2FS9d46BA
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That might come as a surprise given Ronaldo was Rangnick's 18-goal top scorer in the Premier League last term, one he was prepared to start in 18 of a possible 24 of his games , but his words in May shed some light on what he likely told Tuchel.
Rangnick: 'not a pressing monster'
"Cristiano Ronaldo, and I'm not blaming him at all, he did great in those games," said the current Austria manager. "But he's not a pressing monster. He's not a player, even when he was a young player, who was crying, shouting 'hooray, the other team has got the ball, where can we win balls?'
"The same with quite a few other players so we had to make some compromises at one stage, maybe we made a few too many - that's also possible."
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Ronaldo was benched for United's 1-0 win over Liverpool on Monday with Marcus Rashford leading the line, and although he got the final 22 minutes of Saturday's 1-0 win at Southampton, he seemed to bid farewell to the fans at full-time, making a point of going over to the visiting end and sharing applause with them.
Chelsea have spent more than €200 million this summer bringing the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly and Marc Cucurella to the club, and it appears they will now spend what is left of their budget on Barcelona's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to fill the hole in their attack.
