Cristiano Ronaldo has been trending on social media after an interview with Piers Morgan, where the five-time Ballon d’Or winner criticized Manchester United and his coach Erik Ten Hag.
In the said interview Cristiano Ronaldo revealed that Manchester United has betrayed him and the club has not evolved since Sir Alex Ferguson left. On Erik Ten Hag, he added that he cannot respect him again. The Portuguese superstar has faced backlash from Manchester United fans since the interview came out and could be on his way out from Manchester United in January.
However, Graeme Souness has defended Cristiano Ronaldo, citing his own example with former Liverpool manager Joe Fagan.
Souness recalled: “I told him he could stick his team and wrote out a transfer request.
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“If someone makes a big player a promise, they must stick to it.”
The former Liverpool captain said on The White and Jordan Show on TalkSports: “I choose to believe Ronaldo has been mistreated here.
I think he has been told a story and the manager has not kept it.
“He does not bring him on against Manchester City out of respect. A couple of weeks later he wanted him to come on against Tottenham with three minutes to go, what can he do there?
“Then he makes him captain, and that for me looking at it from the outside, I think the player has a grievance, and I think he is entitled to his grievance.”
Simon Jordan who disagrees with what Graeme Souness said, insisted that players should do what they are told.
The former Crystal Palace Chairman said: “I think Graeme’s point is a great one, and I understand why he may think it is.
“I think now and again situations dictate that people can’t always follow through and can’t always precisely give you what you want.
You don’t judge people when everything is going your way.
“So, if Graeme thinks the example he has given of somebody having to change their mind for very tangible reasons, suggesting he was entitled to put in a transfer request, I would have been very disappointed with you if I had been the owner of the football club.”
There was a back-and-forth debate between Graeme Souness and Simo Jordan.
Souness: “I was a player with a big ego.”
Jordan: “That is fine, but it does not make it right Graeme, does it? It does not make it right.”
Souness: “If you’re asking a player today and it happened a month earlier, it would have been the same reaction from me.”
Jordan: “You were a player, and players have to do what they are told.”
Souness: “Then I became a manager, and if a player had done that to me I would have understood it. Ronaldo is a big player.”
Jordan: “You’re taking the literal of someone telling you something and you taking it as a promise – then throwing your toys out of the pram. When the reality of it, rather say ‘I’ll show you because your argument is overcooking the pudding.”
Souness: “I did not get what I want, or what I was entitled to get because someone changed their mind. Not what I was entitled to, but what the assistant manager told me at the time.”
Jordan: “But Graeme, also, what your reaction was, was to go from one extreme to the other.
“So what you have had is a situation where you have overreacted, and gone I am not just going to be unhappy about this, I am going to set it all on fire.
“I am going to say I am leaving, I mean, what a childish outburst! By definition of transfer request, it would find its way into the media and come out sooner, rather than later.
“Bob Paisley came in and rectified it, to your satisfaction, because you’re the cog in the wheel, and a bloody good player.
“You’re not the head cook or bottle washer. At a moment in time, everybody made a judgment call that they had to reverse out of football, for very tangible reasons, and you as a grown up would understand, because you did not expect it, did you?
“I have a fundamental understanding that you players, get too far ahead of yourselves sometimes.”
