A subject went unaddressed in Erik ten Hag’s programme notes. Someone went unmentioned. There was an 81-word paragraph on the following page; on the off-chance anyone who had turned up at Old Trafford under the illusion that Cristiano Ronaldo still played for Manchester United, it alerted them to his departure, if not the circumstances of perhaps the most explosive exit since Roy Keane’s in 2005. The brevity was telling.
It was scarcely a tribute but then perhaps Ronaldo’s final act at United was to mean that, if not quite airbrushed from history, he was certainly consigned to the past. Supporters chorused for the Glazers to go; there were no nostalgic chants of “Viva Ronaldo”. Instead, life after Ronaldo began with an illustration of how United can benefit from the departure of the scorer of 819 goals in the most prolific career of all.
