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| Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United during the warm up in the Premier League match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on October 19, 2022 in Manchester, England. |
Marseille president Pablo Longoria insists his club will not attempt to sign Cristiano Ronaldo to partner ex-Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez amid his Manchester United fallout.
Ronaldo may have already played his last match for the Red Devils after leaving the substitute’s bench before the end of Wednesday’s Premier League clash with Tottenham and storming out of Old Trafford.
Ronaldo pushed for a move away from United during the summer after his side failed to qualify for this season’s Champions League. But he was short of suitors and ultimately stayed in the north west.
The 37-year-old has cut a frustrated figure at Old Trafford since the campaign got underway and was part of the team that suffered an embarrassing 4-0 reverse at Brentford in August. He has since started only two Premier League games and was named on the bench when his side hosted Spurs.
The blockbuster star refused to come on as a late substitute against the Lilywhites and instead headed down the tunnel in the 89th minute before leaving the stadium while the match was still taking place. And Red Devils boss Erik ten Hag has now dropped the player from the matchday squad that will travel to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea on Saturday.
Ronaldo could be shown the door in January if another club is willing to sign him. Marseille have been linked with the striker in recent months after signing Sanchez on a free transfer from Inter in August. But Longoria says his club have no interest in landing the Portugal international.
“Cristiano Ronaldo?” Longoria recently mused. “We always enter into conversations. Football is very clear – you do with the means you have at your disposal, with an economic balance. You have to do everything to get the best results, look for ways to improve the team but with financial stability.
“This is important in 2022. We need a lasting economic situation. We are far from ideas like that, big stars, individual players. We are more for the players collectives that give us individual performance at the service of the collective. We have a project where everyone must make themselves available to a collective.”
Ronaldo could well have jumped at the opportunity to move to Marseille as the club are in this season’s Champions League and could qualify for the knockout stages as they are second in their group with two matches remaining.
But the French club appear to be focused on signing a different type of player, according to Longoria’s comments. And that means Sanchez won’t be able to form part of a deadly former Premier League frontline.
Sanchez, 33, bagged 80 goals and 45 assists in 166 matches for Arsenal and has found the back of the net six times in 12 games since moving to France.
