Ten Hag opens fire on Ronaldo: he let Manchester United down and was not running

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Premier LeagueSaudi Pro LeagueManchester UnitedAl Nassr FCE. ten HagC. RonaldoEnglandSaudi ArabiaNetherlandsPortugalThe matter ended with the departure of the coach and the player.

Erik ten Hag has reopened his feud with Cristiano Ronaldo. The former Manchester United manager revealed fresh details behind the tension between them, accusing the Portuguese of failing to meet the physical and technical demands he set his players, while acknowledging his place among the greatest footballers in history.

Ten Hag took charge at Old Trafford in the summer of 2022. He won the English League Cup in his first season and the FA Cup in 2024, before his dismissal in October of the same year.

Speaking to The Athletic, the Dutchman recalled the behind-the-scenes details of his crisis with Ronaldo. He stressed that the player's departure was no easy decision, but felt the interests of the team and collective discipline demanded calls that were not swayed by a player's name or history.

"He let the team down, and he let me down too, because we were planning for the season with him in it," Ten Hag said.

"I travelled to Portugal to speak with him about the objectives I was seeking to achieve before taking on the responsibility of managing Manchester United," he added.

"He is one of the best players in the history of football, and I respected him greatly, but as a manager, I had to make a rational decision and rely on the players I saw as the most suitable for the team," he explained.

The criticism went beyond the personal dispute. Ten Hag revealed that the physical side was one of the most prominent reasons for his crisis with the Portuguese star, confronting him over what he saw as a shortcoming in training and a failure to reach the required level.

He recalled the gruelling sessions he imposed on his players after the 4-0 defeat to Brentford in August 2022, explaining that Ronaldo completed only two of the three scheduled laps.

Discussions between the pair also covered the striker's movement on the pitch. "I told him many times: Ronny, everyone wants to help you get into the right position, but if you cannot reach the penalty area, you will not be able to score," he said.

Ten Hag continued: "He was not running, whether when we had possession of the ball or when we lost it, and the reason was that he had not prepared himself in the required way."

The former manager stressed that he was not asking Ronaldo to press opponents to exhaustion. He simply wanted him to reach the physical readiness that would allow him to carry out the required roles, insisting that stardom exempts no player from the team's demands.

Ten Hag also touched on the influence of players within the group. Some stars, he pointed out, may encourage teammates to save their effort during training, which he considered inappropriate if those players had not yet reached the required physical level.

"Every big team must embrace its big player, but the big player must also work for the team," he said.

Saving effort may be understandable when a player reaches the peak of his fitness, he added, but the priority at the start must be work and training until the required level is reached.

Ronaldo was not the only issue, Ten Hag went on. The problem extended, by his assessment, to the mentality of certain players for whom football was not the top priority, making it harder to impose the standards he wanted at Manchester United.

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