Cristiano Ronaldo is playing poker with Manchester United for a second summer running.
Last year, he and his agent, Jorge Mendes, did it by dangling Manchester City’s interest in front of them. And this time Ronaldo has clearly caught a whiff of the idea that Erik ten Hag fancies moving him on, so they’ve drummed up a suggestion that other teams want him to try to get United to panic again and tie him down.
Well, my message to Ten Hag and Co is clear: show some cojones and biff him off. Because, for one thing, can you imagine Liverpool, City, Barcelona or Real Madrid being held to ransom and thinking, ‘Oh, hang on, if another big club wants him, maybe we’d better keep him’. Of course you can’t.
