The Devil In Me

He plays for the Reds. He plays for whites…?
Well who knows. It seems as though over the course of the last week the debate has shifted from will he/won’t he, to one for justifying the reasons why we should in fact sell him.

Two things appear to be clear, Ferguson doesn’t want to sell him and he wants to go. I, for one, am not in the business of testing the big man’s resolve on any matter, so I feel it is still a matter of whether or not he goes, rather than simply when and for how much.

History backs me up on this. After the last international tournament Ronaldo publicly stated his desire to leave for Real Madrid only to be talked out of it and quickly hushed upon his return to Manchester. You will have read by now that he has gone on holiday and the state of play has still not changed. Same as last time.

The reasons being mooted for selling him are as follows. Firstly the money. Yes we would get a big pile of cash off the Spaniards but there is no way that £60million would buy us a winger and a goalscorer of such quality in such a short space of time. But the Glazers might want it to pay off the debts I hear you cry! Well that’s their problem, I am assuming they have some kind of business plan which didn’t involve unexpected piles of money landing on their laps so they can stick to that.

No player is bigger than the club. I agree with this one, and there are those amongst us who still rue the sales of Rvn and Sir David but the precedent has been set and we should stick to it. I actually don’t think that he has got to that stage yet, he still plays for the team and is not asking for outlandishly special treatment around the club. His training is legendarily diligent and as such his professionalism is still sound enough for United.

He doesn’t want to play for us so get rid. Fair enough and this is the argument that will be the clincher for most of us but to me it smacks of, well, being a bit self-defeatest. It is important to remember that this guy can do stuff that nobody else can do, he really is that good, and if he plays he will play well of that I am sure.

But the reason I really want to keep him? If he stays I think we can make it in Europe again next year. And you know what? Ferguson agrees with me.

Could it simply be the weather? For a man who spends the majority of his professional life wearing a pair of shorts, is the opportunity to do that in you spare time as well such a draw?

After this morning’s press leakage (which I am led to believe emanates rather bizarrely from a Brazilian tabloid) the mood has gone immediately to one of resigned acceptance. How much money can we get? We didn’t really need him anyway, etc. etc.

He would not be the first genius winger to ship off early to the Iberian peninsular but Ronaldo seems to want to go for slightly different reasons to the ones George chose.

At the moment I am slightly peeved to be honest with. With no England failures to cloud my summer I was expecting another couple of months of basking in glory.

Let’s just wait and see…