Cristiano Ronaldo might be scoring off the pitch for Man Utd but he won’t be troubling a relieved Pep on it come Sunday
CRISTIANO RONALDO just can’t stop scoring for Manchester United – at least on paper.
Folding paper, that is, the kind that makes dollar bills and fivers, the kind the Old Trafford hierarchy just can’t get enough of.
And boy, do they need it.
The club’s second quarter books showed they now pay £391MILLION in wages a year.
The debt brought on the club by owners the Glazers has gone up 8.6% to almost £495m.
Yet at a club that continues to go in ever–decreasing circles on the pitch Ronaldo has come up with an amazing equaliser off it.
For in the three months between October and December the second quarter accounts show that revenues are up 7.3 per cent.
E-commerce sales and the re-opening of the United megastore show an increase of 17.7 per cent in retail and merchandising.
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The very presence of Ronaldo is bound to have had a huge influence on those figures.
United will argue till the cows come home that they brought him back to try to stimulate a charge for the title.
But they always knew that there would be a surge in shirt sales that would mean there’d be quids – in one way or another.
In fact he smashed sales records before even stepping back on the pitch again.
His No7 shirt sold more in a single day than any other sports star ever and that includes global names like Lionel Messi, LeBron James and Tom Brady.
By last September alone Ronaldo shirt sales stood at £160m and the percentage of that paid by outfitter Adidas to United has easily covered his £12.85m transfer fee.
Sadly he has not maintained the same surge actually wearing his shirt.
Sadder still for United, the fact that he will face Pep Guardiola’s men having hit the net only once in his last ten games will not stop Ralf Rangnick picking him.
After all, who else has the German got to rely on?
Marcus Rashford cannot currently be called a top striker, Mason Greenwood has been suspended by the club, Edinson Cavani has effectively taken early retirement and Anthony Martial is on loan at Sevilla.
Ronaldo, at age of 37 now looks much, much older than his years.
His goal in a 2-0 win over Brighton in February ended his longest run without scoring – 587 minutes – in eleven-and-a-half years.
Should he get one against Manchester City – who it was suggested last summer were prepared to sign him but only for nothing – it would be a major shock.
He is now CR37 and looks every inch of it.
During City’s 2-0 walk in the park in November’s Manchester derby he managed one volley and was rarely spotted again.
Not that he was alone. The team then managed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were made to look like statues.
And the more you think about that so-called plan by City to sign him when he was leaving Juventus, the more preposterous the whole thing sounds.
Why, exactly, would Guardiola want to sign a veteran who of course has deserved all the adulation he has received as a five-time Ballon d’Or winner but was already clearly in decline?
Guardiola himself said before the November derby that he was a “goal machine” who would still be scoring in his 70s.
But he was only being polite.
Ronaldo hadn’t been doing the hard yards the Etihad manager demands of his strikers last season in Serie A.
City fans will remember that Guardiola even chided and then dropped his club’s all-time record scorer Sergio Aguero for not running enough or doing his bit as a team player.
Ronaldo no longer runs enough.
Not because he won’t but because he can’t and he is in danger of warping his own legend as one of the greatest players of all time.
Be certain that if Rangnick had any real choice he would have him only on the bench against City and use him as an impact player.
Except that he has few other options but to start him and hope that, maybe, Ronaldo has one more magic moment in him with a Champions League place next season already looking a huge ask.
Another hammering by City might just end any chance.
Not that the Old Trafford money men will be worrying too much.
Not when new chief executive Richard Arnold was extolling the virtues of United’s drive for an even greater share of the football market.
He declared : “The key word in terms of driving forward for the future is digitisation.
“You heard about digitising the stadium with the implementation of wi-fi.
“You heard about the work that we’re doing and implementing new partnerships all of which are centred on the digital environment, in particularly the new partnership with Tezos.”
Actually blockchain company Tezos have been dive-bombing, their shares worth 62 per cent less than they were at the start of United’s second quarter – down from a high of $9.12 on October 4 to around $3.16 now
A bit actually like the way Ronaldo’s own output has been falling since he got to 14 goals by the turn of the year then hit the wall.
But by then he had at least paid for himself in shirt sales.
The longer this season goes on the more likely it is that United – on the pitch – will pay for believing that romance was not dead in football by bringing him back.
City, and certainly Guardiola, were not fooled into believing that.
Or at least they were not going to pay almost £13m and around £500,000 a week to find out.
That is the real key why he’ll be playing in red, and not sitting in the Etihad stand in blue when Sunday’s derby kicks off.
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