Last month, former Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag opened up and heavily criticized Cristiano Ronaldo. And he is back at it again. Speaking to ESPN recently, the former Manchester United manager and Ronaldo's coach there claimed the Portuguese superstar's career began to decline after he left Real Madrid.
Speaking to ESPN NL's Goedemorgen Eredivisie, Ten Hag reflected on his time at Manchester United before addressing Ronaldo's talent. “The challenge is to get the team functioning, really as always. Every player is important in that and you need top players to be able to win. Every top team must embrace the top player, but the top player must work for the team. And that was simply the problem with [Cristiano] Ronaldo.
“The players wanted to work for him and they looked up to him because let there be no misunderstanding about that. He is of course a tremendous player, one of the greats of all time. But that is also the reality over the last seven, eight years he simply can no longer deliver. From Juventus onwards it's simply over.
Article Continues Below“And that is actually the great gift of Real Madrid — they always know when to say goodbye to players at the right moment. They recognise when a player's level is declining and they say goodbye at a moment when to the outside world, they still appear to be at their peak. But they can no longer actually deliver,” he added.
Ronaldo left Real Madrid at 33 and joined Italy's Juventus. After spending three years at the Italian club, he joined back Manchester United at 36 years of age. A former “Red Devil” himself, Ronaldo joined the Northern British club after spending the first few years of his career there.