Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first Manchester United hat-trick in 14 years as Tottenham were defeated in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
The brilliant Portuguese put United ahead twice before heading home the winner from Alex Telles\u2019 corner nine minutes from time, the 807th goal of his career.<\/p>\n
Tottenham twice responded to Ronaldo\u2019s efforts, through a Harry Kane penalty and a Harry Maguire own goal.<\/p>\n
But it was Ronaldo who had the final word, completing his first United treble since January 2008, in a 6-0 win over Newcastle.<\/p>\n
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The result was a major confidence boost for United before Tuesday\u2019s Champions League last-16 second leg against Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n
It also moves them back into the top four and keeps Tottenham in seventh, although Arsenal \u2013 two points behind in fifth \u2013 remain favourites to clinch the final Champions League berth as they have four games in hand.<\/p>\n
There were reports that Ronaldo is now the Fifa-recognised all-time top goalscorer, surpassing Josef Bican\u2019s 805 goals but there are doubts about the Czech-Austrian\u2019s figure \u2013 which includes reserve games.<\/p>\n
The Ronaldo show
The debate around Ronaldo\u2019s value to this United team has been going on from the moment their season started to unravel barely a couple of weeks after his much-heralded return.<\/p>\n
At 37, it is clear his best days are behind him.<\/p>\n
Yet he remains capable of such moments of brilliance that it is hard to see how this present squad would benefit from him not being there.<\/p>\n
His opener was a prime example.<\/p>\n
Fred\u2019s deft flick to the side helped considerably but Ronaldo\u2019s two precise touches teed up the right-footed shot that flew over Hugo Lloris and into the top corner.<\/p>\n
The second was further evidence of Ronaldo\u2019s ability to exploit weakness. He timed his run to perfection as Jadon Sancho made the most of Sergio Reguilon\u2019s struggles within the Tottenham defensive line to deliver the low cross that his vastly experienced team-mate turned home with ease.<\/p>\n
And if anyone was likely to get a winner, it was United\u2019s number seven.<\/p>\n
When he did, Ronaldo was immediately replaced to a standing ovation that was totally deserved.<\/p>\n
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Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first Manchester United hat-trick in 14 years as Tottenham were defeated in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford. The brilliant Portuguese put United ahead twice before heading home the winner from Alex Telles\u2019 corner nine minutes from time, the 807th goal of his career. Tottenham twice responded to Ronaldo\u2019s efforts, through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1020003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[919,697,3932,5837,1785,2822,1000],"class_list":{"0":"post-1020002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-hattrick","9":"tag-man","10":"tag-ronaldos","11":"tag-thriller","12":"tag-tottenham","13":"tag-united","14":"tag-wins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}