Passionate Graeme Souness reckons Cristiano Ronaldo is being mistreated by Erik Ten Hag - just like he was by Joe Fagan while playing for Liverpool in the 1980s.
The Ronaldo saga is dominating the European football headlines after a bombshell interview where the Portuguese claimed he feels "betrayed" by his manager. The 37-year-old has been reduced to a bit-part role after his failed transfer in the summer and infamously refused to come off the bench against Tottenham back in October - prompting Ten Hag to boot him out of the squad against Chelsea three days later.
It's claimed Ronaldo was promised a more prominent role within the squad in a bid to keep him happy but that has not materialised with Ten Hag repeatedly refusing to bow to him. And after Ronaldo publicly called out the manager and his treatment of him on Sunday night, the club were forced to release a statement promising to take action "once the facts had been established."
Souness though feels it's Ten Hag, and not Ronaldo, who is in the wrong. He compared it to when he was playing for Liverpool under Fagan and was left furious by a "broken promise" for more first-team football. He said on talkSPORT: “I told (Fagan) he could stick his team and wrote out a transfer request. If someone makes a big player a promise, they must stick to it.
“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.”
That prompted a heated response from fellow pundit Simon Jordan who claimed players should know their place and "do as they are told." But Souness wasn't having it as he said: "I was a player with a big ego, but If you’re asking a player today and it happened a month earlier, it would have been the same reaction from me.
"I became a manager, and if a player had done that to me I would have understood it. Ronaldo is a big player.”
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