New Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe believes Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player to ever represent the Premier League giants with the Portugal international having two spells at Old Trafford.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Failsworth-born billionaire who finally completed the partial takeover of his boyhood club a month ago, is hardly short of potential options. The 71-year-old has witnessed most of the greatest players ever to wear Manchester United’s famous red shirt up close, from Paul Scholes to Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs to Eric Cantona.
But one stands head and shoulders above the rest, Ratcliffe naming Cristiano Ronaldo as Man United’s best during a wide-ranging interview on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast.
Ratcliffe picks Manchester United’s best-ever player
“Probably Ronaldo, I guess,” Ratcliffe muses. “I remember Bobby Charlton a bit, and he was obviously the legend of Manchester United.
“George Best, I suppose, was probably the most naturally gifted player I’ve ever seen play football. But I once asked Alex Ferguson who the best player he had ever coached was, and he said Ronaldo. It was the first time I met (Ferguson), actually, at a League Managers Association dinner.”
Ronaldo is one of only four players to win the prestigious Ballon D’Or award while contracted to the Red Devils, after Denis Law, George Best and the late Sir Bobby Charlton.
The Portuguese powerhouse blossomed into the finest footballer in the world during his first spell at the club under Sir Alex Ferguson between 2003 and 2009, joining as a precocious teenager from Sporting Lisbon and departing a Premier League and Champions League winner, and arguably the greatest goalscorer of his generation.
And while Ronaldo’s return did not work out in the way anyone would have hoped, the Real Madrid legend did still score 24 goals in the 2021/22 season after re-joining at the ripe old age of 36.
- READ MORE: Who is Cristiano Ronaldo? Meet one of football’s most iconic names and undisputed Man Utd legend
Solskjaer paid for Ronaldo return
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a former team-mate of Ronaldo and the man who green-lit his stunning Old Trafford comeback, has no regrets about bringing such an iconic player back to his old stomping ground but accepts that – in hindsight – maybe the move was not the right one for any party.
“I was excited, so I said yes,” Solskjaer told The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast recently, while admitting that Edinson Cavani was hit hardest by Ronaldo’s return.
“They actually asked me ‘Would you want us to try this?’. And I said yeah, we know Cristiano, we know his quality, we know (his age) but we’ll have to manage because he’s the best goalscorer in the world.
“It was my decision,” adds the Norwegian, who was sacked just a few months into that season. “It didn’t work out for me, it didn’t work out for Cristiano. But it was the right decision at the time.
“The right thing was to sign Cristiano, but I think it would’ve turned out better for Cristiano and for us if he hadn’t signed, that’s the headline.”
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