Former Manchester United head coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted that Cristiano Ronaldo‘s return to the club in the summer of 2021 “didn’t work out”, but the Norwegian stands by the decision to bring him back to Old Trafford.
Ronaldo was thought to be on the verge of joining Manchester City from Juventus before Man United re-signed him in August 2021.
We started off straight away thinking how we are going to press and change the little tweaks,” Solskjaer told the Stick to Football podcast. “Cristiano is different to Antony Martial who was up front, or whether we would play Mason [Greenwood] or Marcus [Rashford] up front.
Edinson Cavani was the one that suffered the most when Cristiano came in – we’d played and got Edinson into a certain way of understanding the way we played.
“With the ball, with him in the team, it was no problem. Without him [pressing], we had to change a little bit the different roles we’d gotten used to.
We were one of the highest pressing teams before [Ronaldo joined]. We let Dan James (Daniel James) go when Cristiano came in, and they’re two different types of players.
“Part of signing Cristiano Ronaldo was getting that passion from him, but that did have its complications.
“When I was manager of Manchester United, I can’t remember too many problems from Cristiano Ronaldo. It was the game against Everton when he walked straight off the pitch after I brought him on as a substitute, but there were more problems with him after I had left the club.
“I had a good relationship with Cristiano and there’s loads of respect between us. I think he behaved really well in his disappointments when I was there.”