BRINGING back Cristiano Ronaldo always was about nostalgia.
It was part of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s fever dream to revive the glory, glory days of the Sir Alex Ferguson era.
It bought into Solskjaer’s idea that Manchester United could become great again simply because of what Manchester United used to be — rather than being part of a coherent plan to build the elite modern club they can become.
We’ve had enough of trying to bring back the old days — with rampant inflation, widespread strikes and the threat of blackouts, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. And if you’re a United fan, especially so.
It goes without saying that the sight of Ronaldo leaving the subs’ bench and stomping off to the dressing room with five minutes still to play in United’s comprehensive defeat of Tottenham was unedifying and disrespectful to Erik ten Hag and his team.
A silly billy GOAT kicking off. An overgrown toddler chucking his Ballon d’Ors out of the pram.
An ageing diva raging against the dying of the limelight, openly fuming because United had produced their best performance of the season and battered Spurs without him.
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But Ronaldo’s tantrum was so glaring, it also felt like an opportunity for Ten Hag to get rid of his turbulent Galactico from a position of strength.
And by axing him from the squad for tomorrow’s trip to Chelsea, it seems the Dutchman is now on the front foot.
If Ten Hag now shows the courage of his convictions and sends Ronaldo packing, who could argue against him?
After all, this wasn’t an isolated incident. Ronaldo dodged pre-season as he sought a move away, then left Old Trafford early during a friendly against Rayo Vallecano.
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And while Ronaldo’s return was a flawed idea, even under rose-tinted Solskjaer, his continued presence at Ten Hag’s United is an utter nonsense.
Whether Ten Hag ultimately succeeds or fails, he is a progressive coach who deserves a chance to create a United in his own image — rather than that of the club’s celebrity-obsessed social-media and commercial departments.
Yes, Ronaldo can still score goals. Yes, even at 37, he boasts abdominal muscles you could do your laundry on.
Could United still benefit from having a player who has scored 700 club career goals? Yes, but only if he were a team man.
Because this debate goes beyond Ronaldo’s individual footballing merits — it goes to the heart of the club’s philosophy.
Before Ten Hag left Ajax for Manchester, his fellow Dutchman Louis van Gaal warned him he was joining “a commercial club, not a football club”.
Even those who sat bored to tears throughout Van Gaal’s own United reign will have recognised the truth in that statement.
Bin off Ronaldo in January and United can become a proper football club once more — a team which is all about the collective, all about results.
Too many United players have shrunk in stature since Ronaldo arrived — Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford among them.
Ronaldo is not entirely to blame for those players suffering major downturns but neither is his presence a complete coincidence.
Fernandes was pre-eminent again as United battered Spurs with 28 shots.
And had Hugo Lloris not been so magnificent, Antonio Conte’s men would have been humiliated.
Rashford has suffered injuries, and perhaps he was distracted by his heroic campaigning against child poverty, too, but he has also had his wings clipped by Ronaldo.
Sancho was United’s marquee signing of 2021 until the chance to re-sign Ronaldo fell into Solskjaer’s lap, whereupon the young England winger soon looked lost.
Maguire was a respected captain — if not a genuine world-class defender — until the arrival of an uber-ego unsettled the dressing-room dynamic.
If Solskjaer and the United hierarchy believed that adding Ronaldo’s goal threat to a team which had finished as runners-up in the 2020-21 season would instantly turn them into title contenders, then they weren’t watching what happened at the Portuguese’s previous club, Juventus.
Ronaldo netted 101 goals in 134 matches but the collective became weaker. Juve were knocked off their perch as Italian champions and made no impact in Europe.
Tomorrow, United go to Chelsea, whose new owner, Todd Boehly, wanted to sign Ronaldo this summer.
Thomas Tuchel wouldn’t have him and Graham Potter wouldn’t either. Both would recognise him as a commercial signing and a disruptive influence.
Surely, Ten Hag knows he would be better off without a player who should now be entering his MLS years.
Like Elvis in Vegas, people can still enjoy the show but without pretending Ronaldo is cutting-edge any more.
Even his United anthem Viva Ronaldo is absurdly dated, mentioning him ‘running down the wing’ when he has been a centre-forward for more than a decade.
Ten Hag doesn’t need Ronaldo and doesn’t deserve his attention-seeking strops.
For the Dutchman to have engineered victories over Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs after that catastrophic 4-0 defeat by Brentford in August is some achievement.
United are now part of an intriguing Champions League race, in which any of the Big Six plus the nouveau riche from Geordie Arabia could make the top four.
At the summit are Arsenal, a club building a new identity after the exit of a great long-serving manager.
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Under a manager, Mikel Arteta, who possessed the courage and was allowed the personal authority to move on moody superstars Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then build a stronger future without them.
That is the template for Ten Hag and United. Keep clinging to the past and the future may never come.
