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Erik ten Hag has accused Cristiano Ronaldo of unprofessionalism during their time together at Manchester United in a stinging critique of his former player.
Ten Hag took charge of United in April 2022, during Ronaldo’s second stint at Old Trafford after rejoining the club the previous summer.
Ronaldo missed much of the subsequent pre-season due to personal reasons, and he was soon dropped to the bench after a slow start to the campaign. He then refused to come on as a substitute and stormed down the tunnel during a victory against Tottenham.
Ten Hag responded by banishing him from the first-team squad for one match. The Portugal star later returned to the squad, although he played no part in their two matches before the Premier League season broke for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and he never played for the club again.
Ten Hag, who is currently technical director at boyhood club FC Twente, now claims Ronaldo pulled out of training sessions and only completed two of the three laps he demanded from his players after a 4-0 thrashing by Brentford at the start of the 2022/23 season.
“I confronted him with this,” Ten Hag told The Athletic in an in-depth interview. “Many times I say, ‘Ronnie, everyone wants to work for you to bring you in the right position, but if you can’t bring yourself in the box, you can’t score’. He was not capable to do this. It’s the wrong idea to put this to me that I expected him to do the pressing, that he’s exhausted. But he couldn’t. He ran neither in possession nor out of possession. The reason was because he didn’t prepare himself.
“Every top team has to embrace the top player, but the top player has to work for the team … He was telling the players, ‘Save your legs at the training’. I understand it when you are top fit; you have sessions, you can save the legs. But first you have to train yourself to get into the right fitness levels.”
Ten Hag also said Ronaldo “Let the team down, and he let me down, because we planned with him. I flew out to Portugal to speak with him about what I was aiming for before I came to United. Obviously, he’s one of the best in football history. I respected him a lot. But at that time, as a manager, I had to make a rational decision and keep the players I admire in.”
Ronaldo has not commented on the interview, but spoke in detail about his fallout with the manager in an explosive interview in November 2022, which accelerated his exit. He claimed Ten Hag tried to force him to leave and said he felt “betrayed” by the club.
“I don’t have respect for him because he doesn’t show respect for me,” Ronaldo told Piers Morgan Uncensored. “If you don’t have respect for me, I’m never gonna have respect for you.”