"He let the team down and he let me down," Erik ten Hag told The Athletic, revisiting the split with Cristiano Ronaldo and the standards row it helped expose at Manchester United. He also said he travelled to Portugal before taking charge to present his project to Ronaldo, then argued that the forward was not prepared and no longer ran with or without the ball.

Ronaldo's role in the break-up

Ten Hag's account leaves little room for a softer reading of the episode. In his view, the problem was not only pressing, but preparation, with Ronaldo telling team-mates to "save your legs in training" and Ten Hag saying the player still needed to train to reach the right physical level.

The criticism goes further than one unhappy exit. Ten Hag said some players at United did not make football the highest priority, a line he linked to a broader culture of player power at the club. He also said the "Madrid" connection brought in a mindset where players wanted to decide for themselves, referring to Ronaldo, Raphael Varane and Casemiro.

The standards problem at United

The context around his comments is hard to miss. United are 13th in the Premier League, with 7 points from 7 matches, and they have gone five league games without a win. That is the backdrop to a former manager reopening one of the club's biggest recent arguments about standards, discipline and control.

Ten Hag was sacked in October 2024, but he is still making the same point in public: the club, in his view, was not aligned with the way he wanted it to operate. He said the leadership wanted attacking, dynamic football, while some of the players wanted to play in a way that suited themselves.

The wider debate will keep circling back to whether Ronaldo was the core problem or only the sharpest example of a dressing-room imbalance. Ten Hag's latest comments clearly put him in the second camp, but the story still ends with United stuck on 7 points after 7 games and trying to move away from that mess.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →