Erik Ten Hag Says Cristiano Ronaldo Had To Leave Manchester United

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has for the first time said Cristiano Ronaldo had to leave the club following the interview he gave last month.

The Portuguese player had said he had “no respect” for Ten Hag and that the club had “betrayed” him since his return in the summer of 2021.

“The interview I think, as a club, you can’t accept,” Ten Hag said on Friday. “There will be consequences. To make that step he knew the consequences.”

“It was quite clear after [the interview] that he had to leave. I think we didn’t have to discuss it. It was quite clear.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“I think the club can only be successful when all the decision-makers in the club are on one page and they back each other. That is the only way the club can be successful and operate.”

“I wanted him to stay from the first moment until now. He wanted to leave, it was quite clear. And when a player definitely doesn’t want to be in this club then he has to go.”

Ten Hag confirmed he had watched the interview Ronaldo gave to Piers Morgan on Talk TV. “I have seen most of it. I have to do it. It is part of my job to do it,” he said.

Ronaldo’s candid interview shocked Ten Hag as the player had not told him he wanted to leave before that. “During the season there was no window but until that moment he never told me ‘I want to leave.’”

ADVERTISEMENT

“In the summer, we had one talk. He came in and said ‘I will tell you in seven days if I want to stay’. Then he came back and said ‘I want to stay’. Until that moment [of the interview], I never heard anything.”

“I wanted him to stay from the first moment until now. I did everything to bring him into the team because I value his quality. We wanted him to be part of our project and for him to contribute to Manchester United because he is a great player and has such a great history.”

Although Ronaldo never told Ten Hag he wanted to leave, he had told other figures at the club in July, and spent most of last summer trying to find another club.

ADVERTISEMENT

But when no club in Europe made a bid for him he was forced to stay at Old Trafford, where he endured a difficult start to the season.

Ten Hag dropped Ronaldo to the substitutes bench for the majority of United’s games in the Premier League this season. Ronaldo then refused to come on for the final three minutes against Tottenham in October, which saw the club refuse to play him in the following game against Chelsea.

Without the disruptive Ronaldo, who turns 38-year-old in February, United were becoming a better team, which the player struggled to accept and led to him agreeing to do an interview designed to force his exit.

Before the interview Ten Hag had still wanted Ronaldo to stay. “Last year he scored 24 goals,” he said. “What does this team need? We need goals.”

Ten Hag dismissed the argument that United would be better without Ronaldo now. “I like to work with world-class players because I know they can make a difference to help you achieve your objectives,” he said. “That is why you want to have such players in your dressing room. But we never came on one page and then what happened happened.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“I have to make choices around players who are not performing and pick the best team. My accountability is in favour of the club and in favour of the team. They are the decisions I have to make. It doesn’t matter who is the person, it is about how we perform now.”

“What I feel is that in the summer, there was a little bit of disconnection between the club and the players and the fans. Now I feel a connection. We want to keep that process going because we want to make a reconnection. We want to be unified.”

ADVERTISEMENT

When it was suggested to Ten Hag that Ronaldo was in decline and he had tried to manage that, he replied, “Yes, but he chose. I don’t want to spend energy on that. I would have preferred it to be in a different way because I wanted to work with him. He chose another way.

“When he is in good shape, he is a good player and he could help us to get back and achieve the objectives we have. That is quite clear. But he wasn’t.”

United’s season resumes after the World Cup with a Carabao Cup fourth round game against Burnley Wednesday December 21 at Old Trafford.

“We are looking to the future,” Ten Hag said. “I want to go to the future. We want a new future of Manchester United and he didn’t want to be part of it. We move on.”