Over the past week, Manchester United, Erik ten Hag and Cristiano Ronaldo have been at the centre of a storm of opinions. Journalists, ex-players, players from other sports, pundits; everyone has had an opinion about what happened during the Tottenham match.
The event in question? During United's Premier League clash with Tottenham, Ronaldo was asked to come on as a substitute, refused and then subsequently walked down the tunnel before full-time.
Ten Hag then had a big call to make, and he chose to drop Ronaldo from United's next squad against Chelsea and also banished him from first-team training before the match. Most fans agreed that the manager had made the right decision, but some suggested that the Portuguese forward's stature in the game afforded him special liberties.
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But in terms of the event, it wasn't the first time that Ten Hag had acted firmly and decisively to a player refusing to come on. During his time at Ajax, his side were cruising to a 4-1 win against Heerenveen and the manager wanted to bring on winger Amin Younes to see out the game.
Younes refused and faced the wrath of the Dutchman. Having already agreed a free transfer to Napoli the following summer, the German winger was demoted to Jong Ajax and never played for Ajax's senior team again.
Footage of the incident involving Younes has been doing the rounds in recent days - and he has now addressed the similarities between the two incidents.
Younes wrote: “Totally not true! I signed 3 months before that happened already for SSC Napoli.(free agent) So it was clear that I leave the club! The context is totally different than many people tell!”
A German fan then reiterated that he did refuse to take to the pitch against Heerenveen and Younes, unhappy with this reply, decided to take aim at the fan:
“Whole other discussion and pair of shoes. But thanks for your comment number 1.million Gerry. You’re the man finally and now you can go home get in discussion with your wife who is cutting potatoes today for dinner.”
Since leaving Ajax, Younes' career has probably not gone the way he expected. He spent four years at Napoli, but two of those were on loan at Eintracht Frankfurt. He now is on loan at Utrecht from Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq.
With Ronaldo returning to training and potentially in line for a start against Sheriff Tiraspol, it seems that the situation has been smoothed over between him and Ten Hag. However with a good portion of the season still to come, time will tell whether the conflict rears its head once again.
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