Roy Keane believes debating whether Manchester United are better without Cristiano Ronaldo is a 'dangerous conversation'.
Ronaldo started the season in prolific fashion for United but the goals have dried up in the New Year. The forward recently endured the longest goal drought of his career in more than a decade and looked visibly relieved when putting an end to that barren run against Brighton last month.
Ronaldo was absent from The Lowry Hotel on Saturday night and will be sidelined for the Manchester derby against Manchester City on Sunday afternoon. That early team news prompted Gary Neville to suggest Ronaldo's absence could actually work in United's favour, with Ralf Rangnick's side perhaps better off with Marcus Rashford's pace on the counter-attack.
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However, fellow Sky Sports pundit Keane disagreed with Neville and claimed that it's a 'dangerous conversation' to have surrounding Ronaldo.
"I think it’s a dangerous conversation when you’re talking about ‘it’s good Ronaldo is not available’ or whatever the reasons are - whether he’s injured or whatever. I still think you’d want Ronaldo in your team," Keane said.
"Of course, counter-attack the most important thing is the pace, to say that it might be a plus that Ronaldo isn’t available, I don’t accept that. It does give an opportunity for people like Rashford to come in and have an influence.
"He’s not been consistent enough but the type of game would play out, City will dominate possession 60-70% possession and it’ll give United opportunities using space, the right type of run, quality of people picking them out, of course it’ll cause problems."
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