Cristiano Ronaldo

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Brightonian said:
Well, each to his own I suppose. I'll admit the consistency hasn't necessarily been there, but I think there've been plenty of games where we've played great football. Last season the real problem was that in lots of games we'd play a superb half and a shit half.

I think there's a chance that the 'Barcelona era' has slightly skewed people's perceptions of what entertaining football is. Midfielders aren't the only ones who can do it, and five yard passes aren't the only way for them to do it. Carrick's been an absolute delight to watch this season.
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Nah, the Barcelona theory is bollocks imho, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Dortmund, Bayern and even Real Madrid in the past two seasons and they all play substantially different football compared to Barcelona.

Carrick has been a delight to watch, of that there is no doubt. I believe that our football would be much better if we had a settled, quality starting XI as most other top teams do. Rotation is necessary but we've been doing it to a crazy extent, partly to mask lack of quality in a certain area (and then because of the wingers' poor form last season). It was easy to name the best XI of Barcelona or Bayern or Dortmund last season but it was absolutely impossible to agree on what is United's best team and that's a bit of a problem imho.
 
Siorac said:
Nah, the Barcelona theory is bollocks imho, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Dortmund, Bayern and even Real Madrid in the past two seasons and they all play substantially different football compared to Barcelona.
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It's not about Barcelona specifically, it's about only watching the other big European teams occasionally, and seeing a lot of highlight reels or big CL matches and not a lot of the little niggly league matches which is where we also tend to produce our least attractive football. I'm not saying doing it makes people idiots or anything - obviously you know what you're watching, and try to adjust for that, but it's hard not to be influenced on some level towards overrating the quality of a team that you don't watch week-in week-out.

A good example is the way most caftards think of Reus as yet another tricky, very technically gifted winger. If you listen to the Dortmund fans on here, they're generally not massively impressed with his technical ability, and will tell you that he's not great on the ball if he's not running with it at pace. He's much more purely counter-attacking than you would think based on the exposure to him which most United fans will have had.

Siorac said:
Carrick has been a delight to watch, of that there is no doubt. I believe that our football would be much better if we had a settled, quality starting XI as most other top teams do. Rotation is necessary but we've been doing it to a crazy extent, partly to mask lack of quality in a certain area (and then because of the wingers' poor form last season). It was easy to name the best XI of Barcelona or Bayern or Dortmund last season but it was absolutely impossible to agree on what is United's best team and that's a bit of a problem imho.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. Like I say, I don't think we've been nearly as unappealing as people have talked themselves into believing, but I do agree that when we have struggled to play consistently good football, over-rotation has been at the heart of it.

Instinctively I feel that we may see less of that under Moyes, but if I think it through that's just because I know him from Everton, who obviously didn't have the option of rotating much most of the time. So who knows whether he'll pick a more settled XI or not. I hope so. I certainly think he'll be more willing to trust Cleverley (if we don't get someone better in), and that for me can only be a good thing. Whether you think he's average or not, better to start him there every game than rotate with the likes of Giggs and Jones.
 
Pink Moon said:
Messi, yes. Not Ronaldo. Their goalscoring is equal, their game's aren't and that's why Messi is already spoken about as the greatest of all time. The only people who think that highly of Ronaldo are Ronaldo stans and probably Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is not better than Maradona and Pele.
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.. and Messi is not better than Best, Maradona and Pele
 
wr8_utd said:
I really hated the way Ronaldo behaved in the summer of 08 with all his cranky bs so I really don't care if he returns or he doesn't.
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Supporters can put up with Ronaldo's behaviour moreso than Rooney's because Ronaldo is 10 million times the player Rooney could even dream to be. He's light years ahead of Rooney.
 
barros said:
.. and Messi is not better than Best, Maradona and Pele
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I really wouldn't place Best up there with them. From what I've seen he may have been more talented than all of them but he wasted so much of his potential. The fact that he was still brilliant shows exactly how good he could have been.
 
Siorac said:
Nah, the Barcelona theory is bollocks imho, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Dortmund, Bayern and even Real Madrid in the past two seasons and they all play substantially different football compared to Barcelona.

Carrick has been a delight to watch, of that there is no doubt. I believe that our football would be much better if we had a settled, quality starting XI as most other top teams do. Rotation is necessary but we've been doing it to a crazy extent, partly to mask lack of quality in a certain area (and then because of the wingers' poor form last season). It was easy to name the best XI of Barcelona or Bayern or Dortmund last season but it was absolutely impossible to agree on what is United's best team and that's a bit of a problem imho.
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Great post. Agree on all fronts
 
has he fallen out with Mourinho? he made a strange comment recently about having "coached the real Ronaldo, the Brazilian one"
 
Ronaldo's Mum Eh? said:
Supporters can put up with Ronaldo's behaviour moreso than Rooney's because Ronaldo is 10 million times the player Rooney could even dream to be. He's light years ahead of Rooney.
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More importantly, he'd never sulked or out of shaped for so long season after season.
 
Isotope said:
More importantly, he'd never sulked or out of shaped for so long season after season.
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Do you even remember 2008/9? He sulked for the first half of the season. Threw a massive strop in his last home game, walked down the tunnel without telling anyone against Sunderland.

He wasn't a saint.
 
Not in my memory. I've never watched him, and thought about him not giving his all.
 
Godfather said:
I agree he never went out of shape, or out of form for a long time. But he did sulk in his last year with us.
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True. My impression is that he s a bit babyish at times..

However, Ronaldo is the more serious professional of the two.. and there s more chance of Ronaldo playing in his thirties than Rooney.
 
dev1l said:
True. My impression is that he s a bit babyish at times..

However, Ronaldo is the more serious professional of the two.. and there s more chance of Ronaldo playing in his thirties than Rooney.
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Agreed. Just looking at that ripped fecker tells a lot.
 
Godfather said:
He gave his all on the pitch. But off it he gave some idiotic interviews in which he complained quite a lot.
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Yes, of course. It was quite appalling and uncomfortable time. I didn't say he's a saint, or whiter than white. I was just endorsing a post about why we (as fans) could put up with Ronaldo's better than Rooney.
 
Godfather said:
He gave his all on the pitch. But off it he gave some idiotic interviews in which he complained quite a lot.
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Publicly expressed his desire to leave the club virtually 3 summers in row before he actually left and join his 'dream club,' and also publically agreeing with Blatter that he was being 'treated like a slave'. Maybe some people's memory does not stretch that far.
 
psychdelicblues said:
Publicly expressed his desire to leave the club virtually 3 summers in row before he actually left and join his 'dream club,' and also publically agreeing with Blatter that he was being 'treated like a slave'. Maybe some people's memory does not stretch that far.
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Don't think it was 3 summers though? I remember him sulking a lot in his last summer with us though. Also remember those slave comments. Really annoying.
 
Was that a case of immaturity on his part though, something that he's mostly grown out of?
He hasn't pushed for a move publically this summer.

I think he's behaved quite well while at Madrid and this season.. He has often expressed that he wants to work hard and play well for Madrid, that Madrid is the team he's thinking about and working hard for, that he isn't thinking of leaving.

Ok, he's had the odd word here and there which have added to the speculation, but I don't think they were necessarily out of order. Responding to the leaks that he is being offered crazy amounts of money and had signed a new contract - a denial of that is fair, right?
 
Alock1 said:
Was that a case of immaturity on his part though, something that he's mostly grown out of?
He hasn't pushed for a move publically this summer.

I think he's behaved quite well while at Madrid and this season.. He has often expressed that he wants to work hard and play well for Madrid, that Madrid is the team he's thinking about and working hard for, that he isn't thinking of leaving.

Ok, he's had the odd word here and there which have added to the speculation, but I don't think they were necessarily out of order. Responding to the leaks that he is being offered crazy amounts of money and had signed a new contract - a denial of that is fair, right?
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For my part I don't hold any grudge against him for those comments. Since then he always talked of United in a very very positive way.
 
Assuming he s interested in coming back, I think accomodating both him and rvp in the same team won t be easy
 
Godfather said:
For my part I don't hold any grudge against him for those comments. Since then he always talked of United in a very very positive way.
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Yeah, I definitely think he's grown up and matured.

Plus, he's had his big move now. He's seen the grass on the other side. It'd be different...

I've always been confident that we are trying for him, and I'm fairly confident we'll see him in a United shirt again one day. Strangely confident, however most of that is towards the 'one day' mark - I'm not so sure it'll be this summer - I guess a lot of it does depend on whether this Bale move goes through for Madrid.

If we get him, I genuinely feel that those who were at OT in March for the home game against Madrid played their part. The reception definitely had an effect on him, he's an emotional guy - he definitely craves attention and wants to be adored. He's publically noted a few times that the Madrid fans don't perhaps appreciate him like he thinks they should, and maybe that could make all the difference.
 
barros said:
.. and Messi is not better than Best, Maradona and Pele
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In all honesty only United fans would say Best is better than Messi. You're entitled to your opinion. It's wrong, in mine, and that's no slight on Best.
 
dev1l said:
Assuming he s interested in coming back, I think accomodating both him and rvp in the same team won t be easy
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Why..? He played just fine at Madrid with them playing Hig/Benzema up top. I think he prefers having a striker up front to take some of the pressure of him, create space for him.

I actually believe that he would relish playing with Van Persie. Van Persie has incredibly link-up play, he is great at holding up the ball for others to join him and loves to create chances for others.
 
Pink Moon said:
In all honesty only United fans would say Best is better than Messi. You're entitled to your opinion. It's wrong, in mine, and that's no slight on Best.
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Really?
I've heard from lots of folks (non United fans) who saw Best play say that he's the best player they have seen. Of course, in a poll right now Messi would win - but that's no surprise.. who of more recent generations will have seen much of Best apart from United fans?

I think there's lots who have rated Best incredibly high, United fans and not.. but media is a far greater tool now, people from all over the world can see every game that Messi plays. Nowhere near as many people will be interested in watching old videos of a player, and back then not as many would have seen him as people have seen Messi now.
 
Both Ronaldo and van Perdue tend to go ball watching when their side loses the ball.....can we afford it?
 
dev1l said:
Assuming he s interested in coming back, I think accomodating both him and rvp in the same team won t be easy
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Seems an odd comment, VP plays as the furthest man forward these days, it's not like he'd be dropping deep and wide and getting into the same spaces as Ronaldo.

To be honest though, if you sign Ronaldo, everyone else plays second fiddle and works round him.
 
Sandikan said:
Seems an odd comment, VP plays as the furthest man forward these days, it's not like he'd be dropping deep and wide and getting into the same spaces as Ronaldo.

To be honest though, if you sign Ronaldo, everyone else plays second fiddle and works round him.
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Will RVP accept to do that?
 
Alock1 said:
Why..? He played just fine at Madrid with them playing Hig/Benzema up top. I think he prefers having a striker up front to take some of the pressure of him, create space for him.

I actually believe that he would relish playing with Van Persie. Van Persie has incredibly link-up play, he is great at holding up the ball for others to join him and loves to create chances for others.
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I can't think of any other striker in the world who would be more perfect than van Persie to play with Ronaldo (if we exclude Messi as striker). RvP had a great season with Walcot (speedy winger/forward), and Ronaldo with Benzema (who's pretty similar to RvP).
 
For how good Ronaldo is, I actually think he's incredibly easy to 'fit in' - easier than a lot of other 'star' players would be.

How he played when he was younger, demanding lots of the ball, wandering about, sulking and not being interested - he's a completely different players, some ways good and others not so (or at least, not as entertaining)

He is explosive and performs in bursts. He doesn't mind tracking back, and unless it's a big team and something needs to happen - I don't see him demanding the ball from his Madrid team mates a great deal.. he trusts them quite a lot, he lets them get on with it, and they don't give him the ball as much as others might (Liverpool to Suarez).
This makes him a little less entertaining, he's less involved in the build up than he use to be, we don't see the amount of skill and showboating as we use to - but it's made him incredibly effective.

Usually, star players are marked tight, doubled up on, with players not giving them a moment - this is no different and even worse for Ronaldo, and of course great at finding space and timing his runs. However, I get the impression that players actually relax and get complacent around him because he doesn't constantly have the ball, they give him more time and space than they should because of his willingness to let his other team mates play.
 
I remember him ripping the jacket out of Albert the kit man's hand when he held it out for him, just because he was pissed off at being subbed. Thought it lacked real class IMO. He was up to his antics all the time with his comments, angling for the move, not as bad as Tevez but still at it. We've forgotten it though as we remember the good stuff more and want him back so bad.
 
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