Cristiano Ronaldo blamed for Manchester United struggles

Cristiano Ronaldo has been blamed for Manchester United's struggles despite scoring five goals since returning to Old Trafford this summer. The Portugal international has added a clinical edge to the Red Devils' attack after leaving Juventus.

However, former Ajax defender Danny Blind thinks Ronaldo is having a negative effect because the rest of the United team are no longer in their "familiar pattern".

It is claimed 36-year-old Ronaldo does not move enough to create spaces for his new team-mates.

"Ronaldo doesn’t really need to play an active role,” Blind, father to ex-United ace Daley, told Sportnieuws.

"Like ‘take your time’. You also see the other players looking at you like, ‘how are we going to solve it then?’

"Normally, the striker runs from one central defender to the other. This caused a lot of miscommunication.

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"Now, they are not playing in their familiar pattern. When the ball was deflected [against Villarreal], you saw Paul Pogba coaching that they had to put all the pressure on.

"Ronaldo did not do that; he is not like that. He only thinks about goals and hopes others will conquer the ball.”

Blind was talking after Ronaldo scored an injury-time goal to beat Villarreal in the Champions League on Wednesday.

The five-time Ballon d'Or winner was then dropped to the bench for Saturday afternoon's 1-1 draw with Everton.

After the match Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was asked if he regretted the decision and he said: " No.

"You make decisions throughout a long, long season; you have to manage the players' workload and the decision for me was the correct one.

"Anthony Martial did well, scored a good goal. Edinson [Cavani] needed minutes and could have had a goal. We have to make those decisions at the time."

He added: "We got hit on one break that cost us and we lacked that cutting edge to get the important second goal.

"We made a couple of decisions that cost us. We had players behind the ball when the ball was delivered and we should have dealt with it.

"We need to work on it because we are facing more and more opponents who allow us to have possession."

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