Ronaldo's return: return of the king, or is it too late?

By Tom Cole, published on 06/06/21

No United fan could say they wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of seeing Cristiano back at the Theatre of Dreams, but is nostalgia getting in the way?

The season is over, the weather is getting better, and as per every summer transfer window, Cristiano Ronaldo is linked with a return to Manchester United. Whilst it has been easy to disregard the rumours whilst he was Real Madrid’s best player, many journalists are suggesting that this time something really could be happening. With Juventus just sneaking into the Champions League but in the middle of a rebuild, it could be suggested that CR7 does not want to waste the final years of his career creating a team for the future. There are also potential sanctions to come from Juventus’ involvement in the European Super League, and if the UEFA punishment is to remove such clubs from the Champions League, you would imagine Ronaldo would want to move to a club who can take part.

With these things considered, Manchester United sounds like the ideal move. We are a club on the verge of challenging on all fronts, and just need a few extra signings to close the gap on Manchester City and win trophies. However, are United fans looking at Ronaldo through rose-tinted lenses, or is he still the real deal?

CR7 turned 36 in February but looks no signs of slowing down. He still scored 29 goals in his 33 appearances in Serie A, and is still one of the most important players in the Portugal squad who have a serious chance at winning the delayed Euro 2020. Players like Cavani have proved that age is but a number if you are still good enough, but investing in a player of this age who will no-doubt demand huge wages could be seen as the wrong thing to do, especially when we are linked with young players like Jadon Sancho and realistically need players in other positions more importantly.

The rumour that seems to be getting the most traction is a swap deal, with Pogba going back to Juventus in return for Cristiano Ronaldo. There would surely need to be more than just a straight swap involved as Pogba is still in the prime years of his career and hasn’t had a bad season by any means. Pogba is a marmite player in the United squad, some fans think he is our best player and others want rid of him after the Raiola scandals and would see this swap deal as the perfect way to be rid of him. Pogba has been struggling in the formation Ole likes to deploy, he is not really defensive enough to play in the pivot behind Bruno, and doesn’t really have the pace to keep someone like Rashford out of the team and play down the left-hand side.

But where would Ronaldo play? It looks almost certain that Sancho will join us after the Euros for potentially a club record amount, and Rashford will continue to be picked, so the only position available to play would be centre-forward. Cavani has just signed a new one-year contract to stay with the Reds so it is hard to see who would end up missing out if the four-time Ballon D’or winner did return to United. Someone is going to miss out, and it begs the question that however strange it may be, we perhaps don’t need Ronaldo to return at this current moment.

Overall, if Ronaldo is there to sign, we absolutely should go for it. We are going to be seriously challenging for the title next season and expect to do well in the Champions League, and we need all the players we can get to be able to battle on all these fronts. The Europa League final showed how small our squad really is after a few injuries, we cannot be as arrogant to think we don’t need a player of Ronaldo’s calibre to come back. The experience he would bring to the dressing room for big games would be huge, he would be able to teach so much to the young players coming through from the academy, and realistically could still have plenty of seasons at the top level. His commercial pull is still huge, and probably would end up not costing us all too much when factoring in sponsorship and shirt sales. Get it done Ed!