Ten Hag says Ronaldo is capable of scoring more than 20 goals this season

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Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag says Cristiano Ronaldo is capable of scoring more than 20 goals this season.

Ten Hag conducted his press conference for Sunday’s clash with West Ham after Ronaldo scored in the 3-0 win over Sheriff.

There, he was asked whether Ronaldo can emulate last season’s figure of 24 goals in all competitions in his first campaign back at United.

Ten Hag has of course recently left Ronaldo out of his squad for the game against Chelsea, but backed the Portugal captain to get back to his best scoring form.

Ten Hag on Ronaldo

When that question was put to him, Ten Hag replied: “It’s up to him.

“But I think when you collect all the chances he creates – the team creates for him in the last weeks – he was there.

“You see, he is still capable to get into the right positions and I know he’s capable to finish them, so it’s possible.”

“In this moment we have to work on developing our team, develop our attacking department, our attacking game.

“And we have strikers, we have good ones, and now we are working on the progress of that.”

United have been playing increasingly well under Ten Hag and a familiar problem has been taking the chances which have been created.

Ronaldo has been as guilty of that as anyone in the Europa League games he has played, where he has lacked his usual composure in front of goal.

Of course, the bigger issue at play is that Ronaldo cannot cause any more disciplinary problems, although Ten Hag has dealt with the Portuguese superstar perfectly during his reign so far.

If United could get 20 goals this season out of any player, it would be a huge boost, and the longer term aim has to be a replacement for Ronaldo for now and the future.