Moaner Ronaldo realises Man Utd are just as bad as Juventus
Carlo Garganese
- Updated: 23 May 2023 08:55 CDT
- 4 min read
The main reason why Cristiano Ronaldo quit Juventus this summer was because he realised the club was in a complete mess. And he was right.
Last season, the Bianconeri limped to fourth place in Serie A – only qualifying for the Champions League because Napoli inexplicably failed to beat Verona at home on the final day of the campaign.
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In Ronaldo’s three years in Turin, Juve won one knockout tie and were humiliatingly eliminated in consecutive seasons by Ajax, Lyon and Porto – hardly elite sides.
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Sportingly and financially, Juventus have been run horrendously over the past few years. Their transfer policy has been awful, leading to a sub-standard squad. They have changed coaches four times in four years, with rookie Andrea Pirlo being replaced at the start of the season by the returning Max Allegri, whose football and philosophy has been horribly outdated. The club also required a €400 million capital injection from their parent company Exor to pull them out of debt.
Juventus have spent much of the current campaign languishing in seventh or eighth position – despite having the highest salary bill in Serie A history.
Ronaldo ran away from all of this because – although he had been part of the problem and one of the causes of Juve’s decline – he knew he was too good to be playing for such a crisis-hit club.
Man Utd are just as bad as Juventus
The problem is that Ronaldo has joined a club who are just as bad as Juventus.
Like the Bianconeri, Man Utd are a terribly-run club who have no hope of challenging for the league title. Indeed, their objective for the season is simply to get into the top four.
As we approach 2022, this is not looking like a simple task. United are languishing down in seventh place, seven points off the top four.
Although they have two games in hand, it is hard to bet on Man Utd finishing above a Tottenham team led by Antonio Conte. You wouldn’t even bet on them finishing above a young Arsenal side who have really started to grow recently.
On an individual level, Ronaldo has continued to score freely since returning to Manchester. He has 13 goals in 19 games but that won’t be enough to win him any trophies this season.
Ronaldo knows this and that is why he has cut an increasingly frustrated figure in recent weeks.
His body language and attitude during the 1-1 draw with Newcastle on Monday was not befitting of such a legendary player.
He moaned, whinged, threw his arms in the air and was lucky not to be sent off after kneeing Ryan Fraser in the head.
After the game, he walked straight down the tunnel without applauding the visiting Man Utd fans at St James’ Park.
🗣 "It's devastating for the younger players if the two best players are looking at the others as if they're not good enough." @GNev2 blasts Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes for their whinging and running off the pitch at full-time pic.twitter.com/euSz2kXLg0
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) December 27, 2021
“We talk about body language. We talked about it earlier in the season when Ronaldo ran off at the end of the Everton game. He's run off again tonight,” Gary Neville complained on Sky.
“He ran off at Watford, when everyone knew the manager was going to get the sack. And at Norwich.
“And there's Bruno Fernandes' whinging too. They're the two senior players. It's devastating for younger players when the two best players are looking at every other player like they're not good enough.”
Ronaldo turns 37 in February and has wasted his final years at clubs who are way off the elite level. If he thought at the time that things would be any different at Man Utd than they were at Juventus, then he realises now he was gravely wrong.
