The news of Ronaldo returning to Manchester United shook what has been the most active transfer season in football in recent years.
Nobody would have envisioned Messi and Ramos playing together. It however became a reality when they both moved to PSG, for a price any team could afford if you win a lottery; a free transfer. Mbappe at the same time was pushing for a move to Real Madrid with the team bidding $180m, which was eventually rejected by PSG.
The news that topped it all was Ronaldo’s fairytale return to Manchester United. Within a few minutes after the official announcement, the Manchester United website crashed with traffic while the social media handles were blazing. Soon after the jersey sales were topping the charts while the aura around Old Trafford and the Manchester community around the world was all jubilant. This was a dream the Manchester fans had hoped for but never thought possible.
Man, were they right to be so cheerful. Ronaldo already has four goals in three games this season. This begs the question, should they be starting to put the champagne on ice waiting for trophy celebrations to come at the end of the season?
Manchester United trophy drought
Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in world football. It has the highest number of premier league titles and the second-highest Champions league titles in England only after Liverpool. However, they seem to have lost their winning ways in recent times.
Manchester’s most recent trophy was in May 2017 after winning the Europa League with Jose Mourhino. Ever since they have come close to lifting a trophy only to end up disappointed. In the recent past, they have reached and lost four semi-finals; the Carabao Cup, FA, EFL and the Europa. While they managed to move a step further and get to the finals of the Europa League, they still lost to Seville, a team that finished 7th in La Liga.
Such losses and misses of opportunities have never been part of Manchester United’s legacy. The fans crave the joy of lifting trophies and keeping records as the best team in world football. Even worse is that their neighbours Manchester City, have become perennial winners in recent times. It is more like they have swapped places.
How best to get back to lifting trophies than through a known winner and a club legend.
Ronaldo is a known winner
Cristiano Ronaldo remains one of the most successful players in modern football. His only comparison is with the other world’s menace in the form of Messi, who remains within their own league as the world’s best footballers.
After leaving Manchester United in 2009, Ronaldo has built a reputation for being a winner. He has won an unprecedented four Champions League titles at Real Madrid, La Liga, Copa del Rey and multiple Ballon Dors. Later moving to Juventus, he won the league title and other trophies. He has also won the Euro title with the national team, Portugal.
In all of these wins, he was not only part of a team, but rather the main man. He has proven a player who never disappears when needed, instead, he rises to the occasion and helps the team, while literally giving the tears, sweat and blood. The multiple individual awards tell it all.
Combining desire and legacy
Manchester United’s only desire at the moment is to go back to the top, where they believe they belong. There’s nobody else to take them to the summit than the proven winner. From time to time, the team has shown they can have great winning runs. Last season in particular was a time the team showed capability when they finished second on the league standings. There were times when they were top of the league and the football world was buzzing.
While Ronaldo cannot win it himself for the team, he will play a crucial role. He has proven to improve those around him. There’s that confidence that comes when players understand the best player in their team. The more confident a team is, the more wins they can rake.
From the first few games, Manchester had everything to go to that one last step. The Paul Pogba that Manchester United fans have longed to see seems to be present. Even though touted as world-class, Pogba rarely gives consistent top performances in a United shirt, as he does for France. However, with seven assists from four games so far, he might have just discovered his club form. Bruno Fernandez remains one of the best transfers in the team’s recent period. August’s player of the month, Mason Greenwood, seems to never stop scoring. Harry Maguire, Fred and De Gea all seem reborn. The team has also added Varane and Sancho to their ranks, while they still have top players like Rashford and Cavani.
While May might seem a long way to come, Manchester United fans can dream a little more. Not that it will be any easy. Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City still have teams who can win anything. Having Ronaldo however gives the United side an edge.
Do you believe Ronald gives Manchester that edge they have lacked in recent times?
Sport
Pep Guardiola hints at when Manchester City fans can expect to see their latest arrival
Danny Jones
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given supporters a rough timeline as to when they can expect to see their new signing, or at least their latest arrival, make his first appearance.
The Blues wrapped up the January transfer window with four major signings: their new attacking number seven, Omar Marmoush (who has already bagged a hattrick on his home debut) promising defensive duo, Abdukodir Khusanov and Brazilian Vitor Reis, as well as their ‘mini-Rodri’, Nico Gonzalez.
However, the club has had another late arrival who was technically signed back at the start of last year but who has spent for the last 12 months or so loaned back to his previous parent club, River Plate in Argentina, waiting to make the move over to the Etihad Stadium – and now he’s here in Manchester.
Speaking on his touchdown in 0161, Pep said Claudio Echeverri won’t be thrown into first-team action straight away but did give a rough estimate as to when City fans could expect him to get involved. You can see him discussing the integration plan in his post-match press conference following the Spurs win.
The mention was only brief but there’s still plenty of reason for Man City fans to be excited by the late January signing.
“Yeah, he [Claudio Echeverri] is going to start to train and mainly will be for the end of the season, maybe the [Club] World Cup and as soon as possible [that] he arrives he can adapt quick for the future.”
As mentioned, the 19-year-old Argentinian attacking midfielder from Resistencia officially put pen to paper with CFG back in January 2024 and was quickly dubbed ‘the next Messi’.
Now, although the football world is often quick to jump the gun with these things and he isn’t the first and certainly won’t be last to be slapped with this premature title, he’s done more to back up these claims since then than he has rubbish them.
Starring at the 2025 Under-20 South American Championships, netting six goals in nine games to finish the tournament as the second highest scorer thanks to notable braces against Brazil and Uruguay as the young Argentine’s finished as runners up.
He also notched 48 senior appearances for River Plate thus far, netting four goals and grabbing eight assists in that time, not to mention having already captained his national team at the 2023 Under 17s World Cup, where he scored another five.
Safe to say there’s plenty of talent to be tapped in this lad.
Once again, Echeverri won’t go straight into the senior set-up for a little while yet, barring a major injury crisis, but he’ll be a more than exciting addition to the City Football Academy and for future first-team lineups for years to come.
Who knows, maybe he’ll be included in an FA Cup matchday squad? Nevertheless, you can expect him to not just come of the bench but hopefully show what he can do at the Club World Cup this summer.
City‘s first fixture as reigning champions of the competition will be against Moroccan side Wydad AC on 18 June 2025.
You can watch Echeverri’s first full interview as a Man City player down below:
The new Man City signing is excited to be finally be part of the club 13 months on from agreeing his contract.
‘Nothing is eternal’: Is Pep Guardiola hinting at the end of Manchester City’s supremacy?
Danny Jones
Pep Guardiola looks to have suggested that more than a decade of Manchester City’s supremacy and Premier League dominance at the very least might be coming to an end.
Speaking in his post-match press interviews after City were knocked out of the Champions League by serial European Cup winners Real Madrid, Guardiola cut a somewhat more deflated figure than usual following the 3-1 defeat.
A Kylian Mbappe hattrick which was closed out within an hour of play was enough to stretch the aggregate score to 6-3 over the two legs and Madrid doubling their lead across the tie proved yet again why, not unlike City domestically over the last decade, they’re the kings of the continental competition.
In contrast, however, Pep seemed to accept the loss much more easily than perhaps we’ve seen in the past and rather than appearing familiarly frustrated or defiant in the press conference; instead, he seemed rather reflective, responding to one reporter: “Nothing is eternal”.
🗣️ "Nothing is eternal" – Pep Guardiola.
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Insisting that they have to decide whether a significant rebuild is needed to keep competing at the very top level consistently as they have done since the 54-year-old arrived back in 2016, he argued that it is only with that they’ll be able to determine what comes next.
As for the result itself, he made no bones about Carlo Ancelotti’s side having “deserved it”, stating simply that “the best team won” and that fans and players alike have to “accept the reality: they were better.”
Having been a familiar foe for Pep long before he arrived in Manchester, both at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – not to mention City having faced Los Blancos a dozen times before Tuesday night since 2012 – there have been less surprising outcomes for supporters to come to terms with.
“With time, the club and everyone is going to accept what it is but for now we have 30/40 games for the Premier League next season to try and be here [in the Champions League] and to improve. Nothing is eternal”, said the Catalan coaching genius.
On the other hand, he also went on to add that it was merely a reflection on the night itself and not what his team have achieved in recent years.
He went on to remark that “when we were playing outstanding it hurt more” to be knocked out of the UCL when he felt they deserved to stay in it, but still insisted: “We have been unbelievable and we have to try step by step to get better from today.” Tonight just wasn’t the night.
Who knows? Perhaps it was just some more melodrama from a manager with an undeniable flare for pageantry and playing into/in the face of narratives when he doesn’t come out on top – which hasn’t happened all that often until their dip in form this season.
Plus, there’s certainly still plenty for him and the fans to be positive about; not only has the arrival of their ‘Egyptian Prince’ and the media’s Mo Salah successor, Omar Marmoush, got plenty of people excited – especially after that first-half hattrick against Newcastle – but so too have the other January signings.
In fact, for all of his downplaying in this particular presser (which you can hear in full HERE), it felt like there were only upsides after their victory over Newcastle, even going so far as to dub new signing Nico Gonzalez a ‘mini-Rodri‘.
You can watch the highlights from the game down below:
Pep is right, nothing is eternal – but sometimes you just come up against talents like Mbappe and there’s very little anyone can do about it.
The Manc -
18th September 2021 
