'You can't bench Ronaldo': Netherlands great on Portuguese star's Manchester United situation, 'Too big for that'

Manchester United seem to be slowly but steadily finding their feet with new manager Erik Ten Hag at the helm. The Premier League giants had got off to a rather shocking start to the season losing 2-1 to Bright and Hove Albion and then 4-0 to Brentford but they followed those two results up with a 2-0 win over heated rivals Liverpool. Since then, apart from a 6-3 defeat to a marauding Manchester City, it has pretty much been steady sailing for the 20-time English champions.

An issue that has cropped up time and again throughout the season, however, has been how Ten Haag has used Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese great has found himself on the bench despite being the team's highest scorer in what was a hugely disappointing 2021/22 season. On the other hand, it is also to be noted that United seem to thrive without Ronaldo on the field, as was the case in their 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.

Netherlands and Barcelona great Patrick Kluivert, who famously was part of Ten Hag's former Ajax's golden generation in the 1990s and scored the winning goal in the 1995 UEFA Champions League Final, has said that while he hopes the manager finds success, he wouldn't have benched a player as big as Ronaldo.

“(Ten Hag) was struggling of course, everyone knows that but it is not easy to come from a team like Ajax where you have won everything and then you go to a big English club. You cope with different players, very big players. It is not that easy. I hope that he can do better of course, I know him quite well. The important thing is that you don't have to educate the top players, you just have to guide the ambience along,” Kluivert told HindustanTimes.com in Mumbai.

“A player like Ronaldo, you can't put him on the bench, man. He is too big for that. But he did it, I don't know what happened there but in my team he would play every time,” he said with a smile. Kluivert was in the city for a screening of the El Clasico at a local shopping mall.

Manchester United's only true dip in the league after their win over Liverpool, as stated earlier, came against cross-town rivals Manchester City. United like most other teams in the league that City have faced this season, suffered under the seemingly unstoppable goal machine that Erling Haaland is proving to be. Haaland scored a hat-trick, as did Phil Foden, and a late fightback from United helped them keep the goal different down to three.

Kluivert said that while what Haaland is doing at City is extraordinary, he would like to see him playing for Real Madrid or Barcelona one day and be part of the rivalry between the two clubs. He also said that he hopes Kylian Mbappe would be on the other side and that might just help them establish their rivalry as a true heir to the Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo saga that has dominated football for over a decade-and-a-half.

“Haaland, what he is doing is unbelievable. But he needs to show it in Spain as well once he is done with City. He is a fantastic player and will be very, very important to City in these coming years,” he said.

“The Clasico is the best watched game in the world so probably one of those big players, Mbappe of Haaland, need to come to Spain. At the moment they are good where they are but if they want to go to the next level, you have to play in Spain as well. They are both fantastic players, they can decide a game in one second. Very, very proud of both of them,” said Kluivert.

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