Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has taken another swipe at Cristiano Ronaldo, claiming the Portugal icon’s career was already over by the time he joined Juventus and eventually returned to Old Trafford.
The legendary forward’s second spell at United ended acrimoniously after he launched a public attack on the club and Ten Hag, accusing the manager of ‘betraying’ him in a bombshell interview.
Ronaldo, whose United contract was terminated following his explosive criticism of the club, joined Al-Nassr in January 2023, while Ten Hag was eventually sacked in October 2024 after a disappointing run of results.
Last month, Ten Hag gave a wide-ranging interview to The Athletic in which he criticised Ronaldo for ‘letting the team down’ and accused the club’s hierarchy of contributing to a ‘toxic culture’.
The Dutchman has now doubled down on his criticism of the 41-year-old veteran once again, claiming Ronaldo could not ‘make way’ for the team.
‘Every top team must embrace the top player, but the top player must also make way for the team. That was simply the problem with Ronaldo,’ Ten Hag said in an interview on ESPN.
Erik ten Hag has claimed Cristiano Ronaldo’s career was over by the time he returned to United
Ten Hag conducted a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic last week in which he hit out at the club’s hierarchy for contributing to a ‘toxic culture’ – and lashed out at Ronaldo
‘Let there be no misunderstanding on my part, he is of course a great player. He belongs among the greats of the world.
‘But the reality is also that he hasn’t been able to deliver for the last seven or eight years. From Juventus onwards, it was simply over.’
Ten Hag also praised Real Madrid, where Ronaldo statistically enjoyed the most prolific years of his career, for selling the superstar at what he believed was the perfect time.
‘That is also Real Madrid’s great gift,’ he added. ‘They see when a player is declining in level. Then they part ways at a moment when, to the outside world, they are still at their peak, but actually can no longer deliver.’
In Ten Hag’s tell-all interview last month, he accused Manchester United’s owners of ‘breaking promises’ over recruitment and blasted them for showing a lack of ambition in the transfer market.
His criticism of Manchester United came amid a turbulent spell for the club, with Lisandro Martinez and Bruno Fernandes both publicly criticising the board and manager Michael Carrick respectively in recent weeks.
Carrick was given a chance to put things right after United’s chiefs met for crunch talks earlier this week in the wake of his side losing 4-1 to Como in the Champions League and 3-0 to Bournemouth in the Premier League.
According to Ten Hag, Ronaldo was not prepared to stand aside for the good of the team
Ronaldo, who now plays for Al-Nassr, is within touching distance of scoring 1,000 career goals
On Saturday, United met a similar fate as they were thumped 3-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, piling even more pressure on Carrick.
Red Devils legend Peter Schmeichel expressed his anger at Ten Hag speaking out against the club during this difficult period last week.
Speaking on The Overlap Daily, former United goalkeeper Schmeichel said: ‘What really annoys me in everything that has happened in the past two weeks is Ten Hag coming out and saying that he wanted Declan Rice and Harry Kane, like he was a god.
‘It’s so ridiculous. He brought (Lisandro) Martinez in, (Matthijs) de Ligt. I mean he brought players in that are still there, how dare he go out and say that.
‘Everybody knew we should sign Harry Kane. Everyone knows we should have signed Declan Rice, that’s no secret. I don’t know why we didn’t do that.
‘But you have now people stirring the pot where they should just keep calm and not talk and maybe talk about what they did for this football club themselves, or what they didn’t do.
‘He wasn’t a success at Manchester United. Why does he feel the need to come out and say that?
‘What he’s saying is “I was let down by the club” and there might be an element of truth in that but he wasn’t good enough. And then he went to Bayer Leverkusen, a team who had just won the Bundesliga, and then he got sacked within, what, three games?
Ten Hag also hit out at Manchester United’s hierarchy amid a turbulent time for the club
Michael Carrick has been given a chance to turn things around after chiefs held crunch talks
‘Maybe just take a step back and don’t put yourself in that because then you will end up with someone like me criticising him, and there’s no need for that. We don’t need it in the narrative.’
Ten Hag was sacked by United in October 2024 after a string of poor results left the team 14th in the Premier League.
His future had been in doubt after he led United to a disappointing eighth-placed finish in the top flight a couple of months earlier, but victory in the FA Cup final over rivals Manchester City contributed to the club’s decision to give him a contract extension in the summer after crunch talks in Ibiza.
He went on to replace Xabi Alonso at Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen the following season, but was sacked after just three games in charge, and he criticised the club’s board for this ‘unprecedented’ decision.
