Erik ten Hag has received mixed reviews from Jamie Carragher and Rio Ferdinand for his handling of the Cristiano Ronaldo saga at Manchester United.
The 37-year-old arrived for training on Friday exiled from the first-team squad for leaving early – and reportedly refusing to come on as a substitute – during the 2-0 win over Tottenham in midweek.
United made the decision to drop Ronaldo for the upcoming trip to Chelsea and pundit Carragher praised Ten Hag for making a stand and dealing with Ronaldo “perfectly since day one”.
“After a difficult start Erik ten Hag has really stamped his authority on United on and off the pitch,” he tweeted. “Their performance against Spurs was one of the best of recent years and he has dealt with the Ronaldo situation perfectly since day one.”
However, former United star Ferdinand was left “baffled” by Ten Hag’s decision to keep Ronaldo at Old Trafford in the first place.
The striker pushed to leave in the summer following their failure to qualify for the Champions League but found stout resistance inside the club – something Ferdinand suggested Ten Hag may now regret.
“If he doesn’t see Cristiano Ronaldo as a starter in his team more often than not, I think he has to release him from the contract, has to let him go,” he told his YouTube channel immediately after the Tottenham win.
“It’s not fair on anybody – the club, Cristiano, Erik ten Hag or the players – that after every game he doesn’t start is, ‘Why didn’t didn’t Cristiano Ronaldo start?’ and that’s the story. Man United have won 2-0 today and one of the leading stories will probably be about Ronaldo tomorrow and that can’t be right.”
He added: “You sit here and think ‘Why didn’t Man United not just let him go then?’. If Erik ten Hag kind of knew he wasn’t going to part of his main plans.
“That’s the baffling part for me because you think what someone’s done in their career, at his level, the manager surely would have known before the season started, ‘Am I going to really play Ronaldo a lot? Is he really what I want in my team? Is he the future of what I’m building around?’.
“It looks to me right now as though he would have erred on the side of no. If that’s the case, I feel he probably should have let Cristiano go. It’s probably going to be something that hampers [Ten Hag] going forward until the day Ronaldo leaves the football club because of how big he is, how much of an icon, how much of a superstar he is.”
