Ralf Rangnick is confident Cristiano Ronaldo can inspire Manchester United to another victory as they attempt to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the third time in the last 10 years.
Ronaldo scored his second United hat-trick in the uplifting 3-2 win over Tottenham on Saturday amid speculation over his future at the club. Rangnick is believed to have doubts about Ronaldo's role at United and has advised the club to target a younger striker in the summer transfer window.
Ronaldo turned 37 last month but has struck 18 goals in 31 games since he rejoined United, all of them coming in the Premier League and the Champions League.
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The Portuguese plundered hat-tricks against United's last 16 opponents, Atletico Madrid, with Real Madrid and Juventus in the Champions League knockout stage and Rangnick is optimistic Ronaldo can produce a performance similar to his matchwinning exploits at the weekend.
When asked if he was concerned about Ronaldo starting again three days after a taxing match, Rangnick replied: "I'm not worried that he has not been able to recover so far. He's always been a person who looks quite a lot after himself, his body, he knows exactly what to do. So I'm not worried about that.
"If he can score another three goals, we'll see. It's not easy to score three goals against this team at all. His overall performance was just good, very good, and this is obviously what we hope to get from him again tomorrow night."
United are level at 1-1 with Atletico on aggregate after a fortuitous draw in the first leg when Rangnick started Victor Lindelof as an auxiliary right-back and played without a recognisable defensive midfielder. Atletico have travelled to Manchester without right-back Šime Vrsaljko and winger Thomas Lemar.
"But it's not just about Cristiano, it's about the team," Rangnick added. "We saw in the first-half in Madrid what we shouldn't do, how we shouldn't play. It's what we spoke about pre-match about tomorrow's game. We have to know what it takes and the rest is all about energy.
"It's very important, even more so against a team like Atletico, who don't mind the other team having the ball and in the last five games they had less than 50% possession of the ball. So we are aware of that and need to make sure if possible that we don't concede at all but it's definitely important to score the first goal ourselves.
"We're the team on Saturday that wanted to win that game, that was obvious, our supporters played a vital role and realised how much we wanted to win that game and tomorrow it will be similar.
"It's difficult for me to answer that question, there was a lot of discussion before that game. He showed what kind of professional player he is, what kind of level he can still play. For us, it's important performances like the one he showed, he's still a very important player for this team and can make a difference.
"Also tomorrow it will be good for us if he has a similar performance to the one he did against Tottenham."
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