Erik ten Hag: ‘Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t been able to deliver for 7-8 years’

Barely a month after accusing Cristiano Ronaldo of being unprofessional during their time together at Manchester United, former Red Devils manager Erik ten Hag has taken a fresh swipe at the Portuguese superstar by claiming that Ronaldo has not been able to deliver over the last seven or eight years.

Ten Hag and Ronaldo had a very public falling out during their time together at Manchester United where Ronaldo was brought on for his second stint at the club, which was definitely more forgettable than the first where he became a club legend.

Ten Hag was in charge of Manchester United between April 2022 and October 2024. Ronaldo was dropped to the bench by Ten Hag after a slow start to the season. The Portuguese star was so miffed at this that he refused to come on as a substitute during a game. He also stormed off during a victory over Tottenham Hotspur, which angered Ten Hag to bar him from the first-team squad for one match.

When the 2022 FIFA World Cup happened, Ronaldo had given an interview where he opened up on the rift between Ten Hag and himself. That apparently was one of the reasons Ronaldo’s second stint had ended in November 2022 with the club terminating his contract.

While both have gone their own ways since those turbulent days, Ten Hag has now taken his second potshot at Ronaldo.

“Every top team must embrace the top player, but the top player must also make way for the team. That was simply the problem with Ronaldo,” Ten Hag said on ESPN.

“The players wanted to work for him and they looked up to him because let there be no misunderstanding about that. He is of course a tremendous player, one of the all-time greats.

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“But that is also the reality over the last seven, eight years, he simply can no longer deliver. From Juventus onwards it’s simply over. That is actually the great gift of Real Madrid. They always know when to say goodbye to players at the right moment. They recognise when a player’s level is declining. And they say goodbye at a moment when to the outside world, they still appear to be at their peak, but they can no longer actually deliver,” Ten Hag said.

Ronaldo also recently fell out with Portuguese national team manager Jorge Jesus during the UEFA Nations League window in October 2026.

Cristiano Ronaldo was apologetic for abruptly leaving the Portugal but remained critical of coach Jorge Jesus’s actions. (AP Photo)

In last month’s interview with The Athletic, Ten Hag had said that Ronaldo had let him down.

“He let the team down, and he let me down, because we planned with him,” Ten Hag told The Athletic. “I flew out to Portugal to speak with him about what I was aiming for before I came to United. Obviously, he’s one of the best in football history. I respected him a lot. But at that time, as a manager, I had to make a rational decision and keep the players I admire in.”

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Ten Hag said Ronaldo’s preparation was another source of frustration. According to the former manager, he missed some training sessions, did not work at the required intensity in others and stopped short of completing the running exercise set for the squad after the 4-0 loss to Brentford early in the 2022-23 season.

“I confronted him with this,” the Dutchman said. “Many times I say, ‘Ronnie, everyone wants to work for you to bring you in the right position, but if you can’t bring yourself in the box, you can’t score’. He was not capable to do this. It’s the wrong idea to put this to me, that I expected him to do the pressing, that he’s exhausted. But he couldn’t. He ran neither in possession nor out of possession. The reason was because he didn’t prepare himself.

“Every top team has to embrace the top player, but the top player has to work for the team. He was telling the players, ‘Save your legs at the training’. I understand it when you are top fit; you have sessions, you can save the legs. But first you have to train yourself to get into the right fitness levels.”