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Reuters

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Reuters

Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best forwards of all time and the Portuguese superstar is still playing at the highest level of the game. He is Manchester United’s top scorer this season and has scored several important goals for the club even at the age of 37.

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However, his numbers have been comparatively underwhelming compared to his output at Juventus or Real Madrid. Several people have speculated that the level of the competition in the Premier League is just higher, but there’s a much bigger problem on the horizon.

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At his age, he doesn’t have a lot of time at the top, and fans have seen a noticeable drop in his performances. His finishing has waned and as a result, he has been benched a few times by United manager Ralf Rangnick.

Cristiano Ronaldo did not play in the Manchester derby

All of this came into play when Ronaldo was left out of the squad for United’s match against their local rivals Manchester City. Rangnick revealed that the Portuguese forward hadn’t trained for the past few days due to an injury to his hip flexor, but there were several doubts.

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According to a few reports, Ronaldo wasn’t injured at all and he refused to play for United after Rangnick wanted to bench him. British pundit and former United legend Roy Keane was among the people who were skeptical about this. He spoke on the issue before kickoff and revealed that there could be more to the story.

We talk about Ronaldo being a machine and very rarely getting injured but every now and again he comes out with that, a hip flexor? It doesn’t add up to me,” Keane said.

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Ronaldo’s sister likes a post about Ronaldo not being injured

The rumor mill went into overdrive when Cristiano Ronaldo’s sister liked a post saying that Ronaldo wasn’t injured. The post went on to say that Rangnick had ruined their day by taking Ronaldo out for tactical reasons.

However, all of this seems to be speculation as it seems highly uncharacteristic of Cristiano Ronaldo to not feature in a game as big as this.

Read More: “We’re Working on the Future”: FC Barcelona Coach Xavi Has an Interesting Response to His Meeting With Erling Haaland

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Aniket Awasthi

947 Articles

Aniket Awasthi is a soccer author at EssentiallySports. This STEM undergraduate combines an insatiable urge to write with his admiration for soccer to enhance his journalism. He lists charismatic names like Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcus Rashford as his favorite players, but he is a great admirer of Karim Benzema too. Aniket also volunteers with an NGO that engages in causes ranging from women's empowerment to the prevention of climate change and pollution. Aniket is someone who is intrigued by the beauty of rhymes and regards himself as an amateur poet. He runs a poetry website called Words Stringed Together. Besides this, he too plays soccer, just like the entities he covers.

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