Man Utd Linked With Latest Ambitious Cristiano Ronaldo Reunion

Manchester United have been linked with an attempt to re-sign former Old Trafford hero Cristiano Ronaldo, whose future at Juventus beyond this season looks increasingly uncertain.

Juve spent €100m to sign a 33-year-old Ronaldo from Real Madrid in the summer of 2018, but the enormous costs of keeping the five-time Ballon d’Or winner in Turin is taking its toll and the reigning Serie A champions have been tipped to try to sell rather than offer a new contract beyond 2022.

If they can sell him in the summer of 2021, albeit likely for a loss on their initial outlay, it means they can avoid losing him as a free agent without having to commit to a new deal.

His Juve wages are thought to be well in excess of the equivalent of £500,000 per week, meaning Ronaldo earns around four times as much as even the club’s next highest paid stars. It is little wonder that his future there has been described as ‘unsustainable’, especially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Paris Saint-Germain sporting director Leonardo has already thrown his club’s hat into the ring, so to speak, with the nouveau riche French giants an obvious choice in Ronaldo’s limited market.

“Maybe tomorrow Cristiano Ronaldo wakes up and says I want to go play elsewhere. Who can buy him? It's a closed circle. PSG enters this circle. Usually it is about opportunities, situations,” Leonardo recently told PSG’s own in-house media.

But Ronaldo’s future can never be the subject of headlines without Manchester United, the club that really started his ascent to being one of the best of all time, creeping into the conversation.

United have seriously tried to re-sign Ronaldo at least once before and have been linked on a number of other occasions. A reunion was thought to have been closest in 2013 when CR7 was frustrated at Real Madrid and the Old Trafford hierarchy were determined to make a statement.

Now that his future is once more up in the air, they are linked again.

Argentine reporter Christian Martin is claiming to have learned from sources in Manchester and Portugal that United have tried to ‘tempt’ Ronaldo to re-join them next season. Martin alleges that the player is considering the idea and that Juve would negotiate a transfer if he asked them too.

It is obviously very plausible that Ronaldo could move on from Juve in light of the circumstances, although the possibility of actually heading back to Manchester seems overly idealistic.

His return could be a huge boost to the club in so many ways, from lifting squad morale, to his impact in training as a mentor to younger talents, as well as through merchandising and in a commercial sense.

But while he isn’t your average 35-year-old, 36 by next summer, Ronaldo does not fit with the long-term vision United have adopted since 2019. Even if it is true that there is mutual interest in a potential reunion, the financial viability of it all seems off, especially in the current climate.

Even for player of his age, Juventus won’t settle for a knockdown figure, while anything other than a huge pay cut would utterly obliterate United’s wage structure. There is no suggestion that Ronaldo would pose a problem like Alexis Sanchez, who was clearly unhappy from the moment he arrived at training on day one, but that is a mistake the club won’t so easily make again.

The level of investment required to bring Ronaldo back to United would only eat into resources earmarked for the long-term development of the squad and further delay the transition phase that has so far lasted seven years and counting. Spending heavily on Ronaldo could easily kill off the chance of going back in for Jadon Sancho, or pursuing the likes of Erland Haaland.

Ronaldo would back himself all day long to thrive in the Premier League at his age, especially now that he is seeing Zlatan Ibrahimovic take Italy by storm once more despite recently turning 39. But it is whether the numbers work for United that will ultimately dictate whether this is possible.

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