Do you want Ronaldo to stay or to leave?

Ronaldo

  • Stay

    Votes: 436 62.0%

  • Leave

    Votes: 267 38.0%
  • Total voters
    703
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R'hllor said:
Using word rotation and Ronaldo in the same sentence, thinking/hoping Ronaldo wont kick a fuss, you cant be for real, he cares only about one thing.
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This is what many are missing. Qualifying wanting him to stay with him being content to be rotated and subbed is just not realistic. He will throw his toys out and it will lead to unnecessary media scruitiny.

If ETH was to take him off in the 60th min in a tight game, we would clearly see a repeat of the spoilt brat behaviour he's displayed this season and throughout his career.
 
jm99 said:
Except he was totally fine with Zidane managing his minutes at real Madrid and resulted in some of the best champions League knockout campaigns any player has had. If Ole and rangnick aren't good enough managers to get this through to Ronaldo then hopefully ten hag will be because he's obviously capable of accepting a more reduced role to keep his fitness up
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There's a big difference between Ronaldo agreeing to have his minutes managed and Ronaldo agreeing to be our second-choice CF though. And assuming we sign a CF this summer (as seems almost certain), the latter is what we'd require from him.
 
sullydnl said:
There's a big difference between Ronaldo agreeing to have his minutes managed and Ronaldo agreeing to be our second-choice CF though. And assuming we sign a CF this summer (as seems almost certain), the latter is what we'd require from him.
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Well tbh, and maybe I'm wrong with this but he doesn't really strike me as being overly comfortable as centre forward. He never played there for real Madrid he was always on the left wing but with somewhat of a free role. He routinely looks quite isolated up front because he's playing a role he's largely unfamiliar with and he's done a decent job, considering how we've overplayed him. But he could play on either wing more comfortably in my opinion, just because he wouldnt be the first choice striker doesn't mean he wouldn't get regular games all across the front line. For quite a few of his goals this season theyve not come from playing as a centre forward, they've come on the counter, or from long range or headers from corners but he does seem more isolated at centre forward than he has been when playing for previous clubs.

So i think bringing in a first choice striker would help tbh, he could still play up front as an option but we could also actually use him in a more natural role. With greenwood likely not coming back and rashford seemingly totally out of form and lingard leaving, we're quite short on wing options and having him available there could be a boost
 
Depends on what happens with Greenwood personally. If Greenwood is finished here we have Martial and Rashford as the only options, one simply has to go, the other isnt a striker and possibly wants to go.

In that case I would want Ronaldo to stay another season and sign an exciting young talent to come in with less pressure in there first season and come off the bench and compete with him over the season.

If Greenwood does have a future here I would like him to move up front and compete with a new signing as well as offering cover for the right wing as not sure Pellestri/Amad are ready at all and Elanga is the only option there if we dont sign anybody.

The futures of Rashford and Greenwood are pivotal to our summer transfer plans attacking wise I feel. Personally I have never been a massive fan of Rashford, think he has been of course really good at times but still for me overhyped and with SAncho, ELanga and Garnacho not far away...feel he could hold players back that actually offer more. WIth Greenwood football wise of coruse I would like to stay, but the whole situation with him and (maybe rumours) other reports of his attitude, not sure I can warm to him again
 
Ronaldo has scored 20 for the season which considering his age is a good return so im Ronaldo in
 
Stay, a great manager will get the best out of him and the rest of the team… if we’re creating a lot which I suspect we will do under ETH then there’s no one better to have in the box then C Ronaldo
 
There is this argument perpetuated all over along the lines of "without Ronaldo United would have been..." which fails to take in any context. I love him, was super happy to have him back, but I also do not think it has worked out. He scores loads of goals, but the way the team has to play with him as the focal point is far from ideal. That's not branding him lazy or anything of the sort, just like SAF let Ruud go despite being a top class striker, it was for the good of the team.

It's impossible to tell how this team would have developed this season without him.
 
Leave. He's only going to get worse, we need a modern young striker to build around.
 
Stay, but must accept to be on the bench from time to time. He’s a leader and will help the young players
 
Red the Bear said:
I'll imagine this to be quite divisive.
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I can’t go for either of those alternatives as stated. I’d have him stay if he is used more sparingly and often (usually?) replaced by a younger, more mobile striker who can contribute to the team more broadly.

But if he has to play every game because of his ego, then I would go for ‘leave’. Keep him as a reserve weapon, basically, because as we saw today, he can still be brilliant.

Sorry to evade your question, OP…
 
That this poll is so far in Ronaldo's favour because of a hattrick against Norwich tells you that there's no hope with this fanbase.
 
Idxomer said:
That this poll is so far in Ronaldo's favour because of a hattrick against Norwich tells you that there's no hope with this fanbase.
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People vote keep because we have no one else. Who are we supposed to play next season? Martial? :lol:
 
Bastian said:
There is this argument perpetuated all over along the lines of "without Ronaldo United would have been..." which fails to take in any context. I love him, was super happy to have him back, but I also do not think it has worked out. He scores loads of goals, but the way the team has to play with him as the focal point is far from ideal. That's not branding him lazy or anything of the sort, just like SAF let Ruud go despite being a top class striker, it was for the good of the team.

It's impossible to tell how this team would have developed this season without him.
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The bolded part is critical because the team absolutely does not have to play with him as the focal point, they choose to. He has never played as the focal point for United the first time around, Real Madrid or Juventus consistently, he played off the wing the majority of the time and occasionally as part of a front 2 for both Real & Juve. There is so much of this narrative that the team has had to be changed to suit Ronaldo when in reality we haven't changed to suit him at all, we brought him in and played him as the #9 in the exact same 4-2-3-1 system we were already playing prior to signing him, RR then came in and tried a 4-2-2-2 because that was his preferred formation & then moved to a 4-3-3 because that suited the players in the squad better. At no point has being the focal point in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 suited Ronaldo whatsoever, you can see him constantly looking to pull out wide or drop deep to find space, even at his age now he wants to be breaking into the box rather than have to already be in the box being marked by two centre backs. It's frankly ridiculous how we've utilised Ronaldo this season and since January (Greenwood/Martial in addition to Cavani's partial retirement) I'm not saying there have been other options so I do understand it to a degree but this whole idea that we have changed everything we do to suit Ronaldo or that we've even adapted to him, is just plainly wrong and comes from incredibly lazy punditry rather than actually watching us play.
 
Idxomer said:
That this poll is so far in Ronaldo's favour because of a hattrick against Norwich tells you that there's no hope with this fanbase.
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The fact you think Ronaldo is the problem shows we as a fanbase don't deserve nice things
 
I don't think he's a number 9. This is literally the first time he has ever consistently played as one. His last few seasons he's been a roam-around poacher playing off a centre forward. At Juventus, he had Mandzukic and then Morata. At Real, Benzema. Even back here, he had other forwards (Berbs, Rooney, Tevez) doing the centre-forward-y things.

Why we suddenly expect him to have top class hold-up play, be great with his back to goal and be world class at occupying centre backs is a mystery to me.

There's this weird assumption that his age has been limiting him into a number 9 role, diminishing his team contributions. But he's pretty much always been the same type of player. Sure, the dribbles per game have declined, but that doesn't mean he was a winger and now he's a 9.

He's one of the best goalscorers of all time and he's still the best goalscorer in the side, by far. Of course we should want him to stay. Its just that his role has to be nailed down properly, and sometimes that role won't be appropriate for certain matches.

If all parties are happy with that, great.
 
Idxomer said:
There's a transfer market and this is a club that hasn't bought a striker younger than 30 since 2017, and we sold that guy 3 years ago.
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If we buy someone better I'm ok with him leaving but I rather have a 55 year old Ronaldo than Martial up front.
 
JB7 said:
The bolded part is critical because the team absolutely does not have to play with him as the focal point, they choose to. He has never played as the focal point for United the first time around, Real Madrid or Juventus consistently, he played off the wing the majority of the time and occasionally as part of a front 2 for both Real & Juve. There is so much of this narrative that the team has had to be changed to suit Ronaldo when in reality we haven't changed to suit him at all, we brought him in and played him as the #9 in the exact same 4-2-3-1 system we were already playing prior to signing him, RR then came in and tried a 4-2-2-2 because that was his preferred formation & then moved to a 4-3-3 because that suited the players in the squad better. At no point has being the focal point in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 suited Ronaldo whatsoever, you can see him constantly looking to pull out wide or drop deep to find space, even at his age now he wants to be breaking into the box rather than have to already be in the box being marked by two centre backs. It's frankly ridiculous how we've utilised Ronaldo this season and since January (Greenwood/Martial in addition to Cavani's partial retirement) I'm not saying there have been other options so I do understand it to a degree but this whole idea that we have changed everything we do to suit Ronaldo or that we've even adapted to him, is just plainly wrong and comes from incredibly lazy punditry rather than actually watching us play.
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Valid point, although I thought it was odd you'd use Juve. Since his departure exteammates, pundits and legends of Juve have been very vocal about this very issue, stating how they became less team centric for CR's benefit. Never watched Juve so can't comment but I do know these criticisms actually followed him in Italy.
 
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Greck said:
Valid point, although I thought it was odd you'd use Juve. Since his departure exteammates, pundits and legends of Juve have been very vocal about this very issue, stating how they became less team centric for CR.
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I'm not overly interested in Juventus or what they've said about him to be honest, I'm sure they may have changed things when he came in but the reality he spent most of his early time at the club playing off the left and his later time at the club as part of a two man strikeforce in a 3-5-2 system. It would have been more odd if I'd mentioned him mainly playing as a winger and part of a two man attack at Real Madrid and then completely ignored the past 3 years at Juventus where he did exactly the same, surely?
 
It's unprovable, but I still get the impression we could have gotten 21 goals from either a 'normal' or 'decent' striker who was at their peak age and worked incredibly hard for 90 minutes. His conversion rate isn't actually that impressive from all the xG stuff and he offers staggeringly little both off the ball and for long stretches in posession while he's catching his breath.

BUT. The odds of us finding a legit striker to lead the line as well as the shopping list we need to address in the summer is virtually nil. We need at least a RB, 2x CMF an actual right-sided fowarded and probably a CB and LB, or someone that can deputise as both. That's not going to happen in one window.

So without Greenwood, Martial AND Rashford - what do we do? We stick with Ronaldo.
 
Gehrman said:
The problem is the lack of available Great strikers. There is no one to bring in. Lukkaku these days go for 100 mil.
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That may be the case but we don't need a readymade top striker we should be able to find a young player who could grow into the role , someone who should help us improve overall team dynamic rather than somebody who is ineffectual more often than not and is mostly a liability if isn't on the scoresheet .
 
gajender said:
That may be the case but we don't need a readymade top striker we should be able to find a young player who could grow into the role , someone who should help us improve overall team dynamic rather than somebody who is ineffectual more often than not and is mostly a liability if isn't on the scoresheet .
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Then there's no problem. Utd has plenty of young players -- one of them can grow into a great striker! [Rooney Jr perhaps?]
Now that you mention it -- Utd has young midfielders -- they can grow into great midfielders.
And of course, it's goes without saying that the young Utd defenders can be great too. They're young after all.

This creating great teams really isn't that hard after all.
 
Gehrman said:
The problem is the lack of available Great strikers. There is no one to bring in. Lukkaku these days go for 100 mil.
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Lukaku only costs so much because you also expect him to bag a load of goals.

I don't think we need more goalscorers. Ronaldo, Fernandes and Rashford SHOULD have that covered in the right conditions. But I think the right conditions involve having a good centre forward they can play off.

A 29 year old Mandzukic would play every game in this side and make us tons better, even if he only scored 10 a season.
 
Are you telling me that with
-a young starlet ruining his career/life possibly never playing for us again.

- a contract finishing for an ageing old veteran who only plays for his national teamwhen he wants to, the seldom of time he's actually fit

- A youngish player and one main player in our ranks who is in horrible form and has seemingly given up on his football career and started writing childrens books and giving teenagers financial tips

- Lazy Martial who cant be bothered with anything and I wont be bothered with explaining more about him

That some people want to get rid of the Greatest player of all time ?? Whos scoring 90% of the goals for our team and the only brightside of our season?
 
Stay. With that said, we still need to buy a new striker. Having another quality option to rotate can help keep Ronaldo fresh, while also taking some pressure off of the new signing and give them a bit more time to settle in. Even playing Ronaldo off of a main striker could be a good idea to toy with.
 
I honestly think he will only stay if we manage to finish top 4.

So, of course I'd want him to stay, if that means we are going to finish top 4.

Seriously, if we want to replace him, we probably need to spend another 80-100m on someone like Kane (Ronaldo>Kane this season). Given the fact that we also need to replace the likes of Cavani and Greenwood, and our entire CM. I'd say save the fund on midfielders instead. We have bigger problems there.
 
I voted leave because if United are to be rebuilt from the ground up then in all honesty keeping a 37 year old player is the wrong direction even if that player is Ronaldo, if a new manager c oming in is to have any chance of success then they must be able to mould the team in their vision and not the boards, United need to move on from nostalgia and join the modern footballing world.
 
Denis79 said:
If we buy someone better I'm ok with him leaving but I rather have a 55 year old Ronaldo than Martial up front.
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Exactly this. If we buy Haaland or someone fair enough. But we won't be able to, and have loads of other issues much more pressing.

My pal wants him out as he's disruptive and is disliked. Amazing. If he's put noses out of joint because he has standards hard luck. Go to Burnley if you just want a lovely lads in it together atmosphere.
 
DepaysCowboyHat said:
Are you telling me that with
-a young starlet ruining his career/life possibly never playing for us again.

- a contract finishing for an ageing old veteran who only plays for his national teamwhen he wants to, the seldom of time he's actually fit

- A youngish player and one main player in our ranks who is in horrible form and has seemingly given up on his football career and started writing childrens books and giving teenagers financial tips

- Lazy Martial who cant be bothered with anything and I wont be bothered with explaining more about him

That some people want to get rid of the Greatest player of all time ?? Whos scoring 90% of the goals for our team and the only brightside of our season?
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We have some exceptionally bizarre fans. I just can't fathom it.
If anyone can tell me the top 10 highlights of our season, without Ronaldo making up at least half or more, I'd be startled.

Rangnick will not come in and make such a huge call as binning Ronaldo.
He needs to work out how to deal with no ability to keep decent possession and control games first. Sort the full backs and Maguire out. Work out the centre mid combos etc and whether any of the other attackers are worth it.
 
If we get top 4 then I guess he might stay, I wouldn't expect it's our choice at the end of the day. He came here to win things, not to endure the season we've had, wouldn't blame him for moving on in pursuit of honours because whilst things will hopefully get better, they won't be dramatically and immediately getting better before his deal is up.
 
I chose stay due to the amount of new players we need next season and not being able to fulfil that in one window, so rather than be short handed up top of stick with him next season and address the midfield
 
kouroux said:
Does Haller work that hard for ETH ?
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The few times I watch Ajax, yes and the stats back it up. Haller averages 18 pressures per 90, Ronaldo averages just over 6. Haaland for example averages 12 and Jota averages 23. Just to give you a comparison. Considering Haller is a big guy, you have to say he works hard.
Ronaldo is at the other end of the scale Nd I am not sure that's suitable.
 
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Bastian said:
There is this argument perpetuated all over along the lines of "without Ronaldo United would have been..." which fails to take in any context. I love him, was super happy to have him back, but I also do not think it has worked out. He scores loads of goals, but the way the team has to play with him as the focal point is far from ideal. That's not branding him lazy or anything of the sort, just like SAF let Ruud go despite being a top class striker, it was for the good of the team.

It's impossible to tell how this team would have developed this season without him.
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Why are we even worse when he doesn’t play?

I mean, we instantly looked a better and more balanced team when we swapped out Ruud for Saha.
 
I voted stay but on second thought, I am not seeing how it is viable. Ronaldo will never accept a role that is anything other than guaranteed starter for the games he wants to play. The man is a champion.
The people saying he does not need to press are getting it wrong imo. You bring a manager with a specific way of playing and with a mandate to instill that playing style. Right from the get-go, you are asking him to compromise. Look at Norwich's second goal yesterday. At no point did Ronaldo or any of the forwards engage the Norwich player on the ball or off it until it was to late. Our performance off the ball has never been great but it has gotten considerably worse this season. For all Ronnie's magic, you'd be naive if you think he hasn't contributed in any way towards it.
We have now hired a manager whose team presses harder than Klopp's for that matter. I think it's unfair on him if he's forced to play a guy who can't/won't press. He's 37 and wants to play till he's 40. I can't see how he accepts that kind of strain on his body. There have been reports over the last few days that ETH doesn't see Ronaldo as part of his plans and I can't blame him. Ronaldo could be tough player to handle if he isn't or is playing.
 
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