Rio Ferdinand

Not rio talking about communication… did he communicate to his dying wife that he was cheating behind her back? Didn’t this guy make a documentary too about her?
 
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Its hardly shocking that people who know one another at a personal level are more likely to have a different view of things than the prevailing public narrative on the matter.
 
Both Rio and Keane have come across as idiots recently.

Or - more than that, actually. They've come across as pathetic. Piers Morgan territory pathetic.

With Keano, you could say there's an added element of...I dunno, projection (in the extreme). Which is also pathetic (to be brutal, or mean), but at least understandable (psychologically) to some extent.

There's a complete lack of analysis (of how Ronaldo actually functions as a player under ETH). All flimsy nonsense about "disrespect" and pure speculation (I doubt very much that Rio is privy to how ETH has dealt with Ronaldo on a man-management level) about a "lack of communication".

Extremely poor from so-called pundits: that's what they are paid to be. Most of what they've been saying on the matter is indistinguishable from the pure drivel of random Ronaldo fanboys on Twitter.

Say what you will about Gary Neville - but the difference between his comments on the Ronaldo situation and Rio's (or Keano's) is obvious.
 
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Maybe Rio gets a commission every time Ronaldo play for United?
 
Fact. Vidic is an all time United great.
This forum outdoes itself at every turn.

Rio is well off the mark with this subject but acting like Rio wasn’t an absolute Rolls Royce if a player is laughable. If Vidic is an all time great then Rio is by any measure. Idiotic post.
 
I don't know why the hell these pundits can't see that Ronaldo of 2022 is not the GOAT-level force you must accommodate into your side at any cost. Ten Hag has legitimate reasons for leaving him out of our best side and this talk of 'disrespect' and 'the manager needs to do this and that' is embarrassing beyond belief.
 
Rio talking crap about Ronaldo doesn’t make him a worse player or worse than Vidic ffs.
 
I don't know why the hell these pundits can't see that Ronaldo of 2022 is not the GOAT-level force you must accommodate into your side at any cost. Ten Hag has legitimate reasons for leaving him out of our best side and this talk of 'disrespect' and 'the manager needs to do this and that' is embarrassing beyond belief.

Because they know him personally. Its always different when you've known someone for two decades and communicate with them regularly, compared with what the media and fans are saying.
 
Not rio talking about communication… did he communicate to his dying wife that he was cheating behind her back? Didn’t this guy make a documentary too about her?
This post seems needless.
 
Rio talking crap about Ronaldo doesn’t make him a worse player or worse than Vidic ffs.

Rio is the best defender I've ever seen play for United and we've had some good ones.

On this, he's talking shite.

Humiliating and bang on from Jamie Carragher. Rio achieved so much and was so good, it's painful to see him acting like part of Ronaldo's entourage. Charitably, I'd put this down to him having an eye on Ronaldo's Instagram followers, maybe he's thinking he can shift some more "5" baseball caps. In reality, I think he's just gravitating around a bigger star and it's not a good look for an adult.

He is to Ronaldo what Stephen Howson is to him.
 
What a bizarre stance to take. Even if EtH had said Ronaldo would be important and hadn't said that he would be coming on from the bench, the fact that Ronaldo desperately and publicly tried to engineer a move away, came back late and not match ready, and most importantly, has been completely shit all season would obviously change things.

You can't be guaranteed to start if you're not good enough to start. It's the same for anyone.
 
Both Rio and Keane have come across as idiots recently.

Or - more than that, actually. They've come across as pathetic. Piers Morgan territory pathetic.

With Keano, you could say there's an added element of...I dunno, projection (in the extreme). Which is also pathetic (to be brutal, or mean), but at least understandable (psychologically) to some extent.

There's a complete lack of analysis (of how Ronaldo actually functions as a player under ETH). All flimsy nonsense about "disrespect" and pure speculation (I doubt very much that Rio is privy to how ETH has dealt with Ronaldo on a man-management level) about a "lack of communication".

Extremely poor from so-called pundits: that's what they are paid to be. Most of what they've been saying on the matter is indistinguishable from the pure drivel of random Ronaldo fanboys on Twitter.

Say what you will about Gary Neville - but the difference between his comments on the Ronaldo situation and Rio's (or Keano's) is obvious.

Absolutely. Keane is convinced that United treated him shoddily at the end of his career. Which is probably untrue but a resentment he’ll carry with him to the grave. All of his complaining about Ronaldo’s treatment is very clearly much more about the end of his own United career.
 
Rio is incredibly compromised on a lot of issues (not least the way he’s on tv punting players represented by the agency he’s affiliated to), but on the Ronaldo one particularly so. It’s only slightly more than a year since he was hyping up his own involvement in Ronaldo returning. He isn’t capable of being objective.
 
He does make some good points sometimes. But yeah I stopped taking him seriously after his Ronaldo to United livestream. At first I was like, okay he is friends with Ronaldo and seemed genuinely excited for it to happen so he wants to share what he knows while at the same time growing his Youtube channel (didnt know Howson was on his team at the time).

Then after a while I heard him saying "10K likes (or views, i forgot) and we will share you the news, like, subscribe, share this to everyone, this is history". I was skeptical because it seemed like a bait but I waited anyway since it was close to the number. Then him and his crew rambled about how much of a legend Ronaldo is for a while, no substance whatsoever and after it reached 10K, guess what happened? Rio said "Another 5K and I will phone Ronaldo" with his crew hyping him up. Like what was he playing? treating his viewers like kids. After that I saw so many hindi comments on live chat calling him out (I used google translate), I then left. 30 minutes for fecking nothing.

He will always use Ronaldo's fame to grow his channel and his own social media fame. So nothing to see here. It is happening now and will happen again later even after Ronaldo moves to another club.
 
Absolutely. Keane is convinced that United treated him shoddily at the end of his career. Which is probably untrue but a resentment he’ll carry with him to the grave. All of his complaining about Ronaldo’s treatment is very clearly much more about the end of his own United career.

Yeah they made a similar point in the Second Captains podcast and I think it's a good one. Keane isn't being seduced by celebrity, he's seeing himself in the situation. As I've said, I think Rio is reducing himself to part of the Ronaldo entourage, but perhaps he's also seeing his own physical decline and his belief he could battle on. To be fair to Rio, he did manage his injuries well for a long time, but his drop off at the end was at terminal velocity. Sadly, clearly, so is Ronaldo's.
 
Fact is Rio made him better, and his type of profile is easier to find (Kim, Koulibaly, Rudiger) than Rio (VVD).
Rio made every defender that played with him look good. He was unreal.

His fanboying of Ronaldo is annoying, but that doesn't take away from how good he was for us.
 
This forum outdoes itself at every turn.

Rio is well off the mark with this subject but acting like Rio wasn’t an absolute Rolls Royce if a player is laughable. If Vidic is an all time great then Rio is by any measure. Idiotic post.
Unfortunately a few ex players backing up one of their boys turns some of the caf to have a go at their playing career .
 
Because they know him personally. Its always different when you've known someone for two decades and communicate with them regularly, compared with what the media and fans are saying.

As understandable as it is for people to back their mates and former colleagues surely when you're a pundit your audience is asking for a more balanced view? Rio can give us the skinny on what it was like to work with such a great player and what a joy it was to watch him develop firsthand (I'd be there all day to hear that) but if you're denying reality you should be called out for it. If Phil Neville got sacked from Inter Miami after ten straight defeats I would be understanding if Gary wanted to defend him but I wouldn't be in the slightest bit interested in hearing such a take.

The likes of Rio and Keane have every right to say what they like, in Rio's case it's his show so power to him, but their bias is clearly clouding their judgement on this.
 
I don't know why the hell these pundits can't see that Ronaldo of 2022 is not the GOAT-level force you must accommodate into your side at any cost.

I wonder if they actually believe it.

If they don't, it's a very silly argument to make - as everyone and his granny can see what he is: past it. And it means we have to question their integrity as pundits (I mean, obviously).

If they do believe it, it's even worse (I suppose). It means we have to question their basic ability to do what they're supposed to be experts at. At best, it's a planet sized blind spot (and you shouldn't have planet sized blind spots as a pundit).
 
Rio can give us the skinny on what it was like to work with such a great player and what a joy it was to watch him develop firsthand (I'd be there all day to hear that) but if you're denying reality you should be called out for it.

Exactly.

And it should be possible to remain (that word again) respectful to Ronaldo (if you think he deserves that and/or if you're his mate) without spouting nonsense in a pundit role, and - not least - without casting aspersions about the current United manager (who has more than enough on his plate as it is).

The latter part is what pisses me off, frankly. They're undermining ETH with their biased crap.
 




Vidic was always better.


Rio was brilliant for us and a proper United legend, but Vidic was the colossus of our back line and in fact the colossus of our entire squad which included names like Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs and Scholes.

Not that it casts any shadow on Rio's brilliant playing career, but the man has turned into quite the muppet in his post-playing career.
 
Rio talking crap about Ronaldo doesn’t make him a worse player or worse than Vidic ffs.
He lost a crucial header against midget Messi, so

Joking aside, this is all Mates FC again. They love their buddies more than the club. Time we move to a new era
 
I used to make this point all the time but it’s in the ex players interest for United to not get back to the top because it kind of keeps them in lucrative jobs, they’re there because fans buy into these rants and ‘arguments’ that are basically what Sky has become because they’re ex players. It wouldn’t really work if you had someone without a United affiliation going off on one about the club, it’d just be weird.

They’ve done it consistently and caused so many off the field issues for every manager bar Ole it’s a real disgrace. Anyone who has any basic understanding of football can see Ronaldo is nowhere near where he needs to be to play for a team who hope to challenge for CL football whilst also rebuilding, anyone over the age of about 5 understands how the ageing process works. Rio is an idiot.

Seems like they have an agenda against ETH already. From criticising his recruitment (Martinez too small for the PL, Antony too expensive, Malacia simply not good enough for the PL) to saying hes not up to managing in the PL as Ajax play in a smaller league blah blah blah. Sick of it all. Our ex players are the worst. Never criticised Ole actually came out and defended him most times, but ETH takes a stance for the good of the team and suddenly the leeches come out all guns blazing. Pathetic.

On top of that we’ve got the likes of Souness licking his lips trying to stick the knife in on ETH. It’s a positive in a way as the ABU brigade are starting to spend a lot of time talking about Utd again. It’s a sign we’re heading in the right direction.

Ironically I’ve not heard Souness talk about Liverpool much recently or Redknapp talking about his beloved Conte at Spurs. Plenty to say about Utd though.

Yeah its funny that they don’t criticise their own former clubs but any little thing at United and they are all over it. its like when Liverpool won the PL for the first time all these Liverpool pundits suddenly became professors in how to win the title even though none had managed it themselves but they were quick to tell the World how United should go about it.
 




Vidic was always better.

All this "no communication" nonsense. ETH does not need to go to Cristiano's house and tell him that if he doesn't score he will not be able to retain his spot in the team.
And then Rio, Keane and Evra are talking as if Cristiano has not been given the minutes this season. It is not like he has been asked to do a VdB in every game.

On the flip side, I do not believe that Cristiano has asked Rio or Evra or Keane to go and bat for him in media. I think they are doing all this of their own accord.
 
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I really hope we get rid of ronaldo asap and that ten hag delivers champions league football and a cup trophy so that the fergie boy brigade can all do one with there constant undermining of the club getting back on track.

This is the same lot that defended ole no matter what because he was one of their boys and now they are doing the complete opposite by criticising the manager and taking the complete unprofessional ronaldo side because he was one of their boys, we need rid of all the fergie brigade from the club.
 
We can only state the obvious. Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the famous human beings who have ever lived. His former mates, Neville and Rio, of course would never dream of saying a cross word about him. Neville and Rio, have no relationship with ETH and never will. Rio's comment about "communication" is nonsense, and, to step into opinion, cringeworthy.
 
Rio was brilliant for us and a proper United legend, but Vidic was the colossus of our back line and in fact the colossus of our entire squad which included names like Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs and Scholes.

Not that it casts any shadow on Rio's brilliant playing career, but the man has turned into quite the muppet in his post-playing career.

Rio is and always will be the better player.
 
I’ve grown to really admire the likes of Rio, Keane, Scholes etc for the things they have done and achieved at our club but they are starting to look like knobs with some of the shite they’ve come out with of late regarding the Ronaldo situation.

It feels wrong to say it but they’re losing a bit of their gravitas along with Ronaldo and it’s really quite sad to see.
 
It’s not just ex players who played with him.
I know sane, grown-up and rational United fans who say ETH should treat him with more respect. What’s the point in bringing him on for 2 minutes anyway so it‘s ok he left. Play him at least for 30 mins, it’s Ronaldo after all, blah blah