From the moment Erik ten Hag settled into his seat for the flight back from London 10 days ago and watched the first clips of Cristiano Ronaldo's explosive interview with Piers Morgan, he would have known this moment was coming.
If Ten Hag 's first question on hearing Ronaldo had done an unauthorised interview was 'Piers who?', the second would have been 'how do we put an end to this once and for all?'.
Too much of Ten Hag's time at Manchester United so far has involved dealing with Ronaldo. The 37-year-old has dominated every press conference, for good or, mostly, bad, and his shadow has loomed large over everything the club's latest manager has tried to do.
