Why did he give that interview?
He hasn't done an interview for any of the broadcasters this season because he's been so frustrated. I think he's been asked to do an interview after every game but he's chosen not to speak. He felt it was time to come out and say what he had to say.
Do you believe he's made a mistake? He might have thought the United fans would be on his side.
I don't know what he thought about the interview. I've called for many years for football players to be free to speak their minds and not be micro-managed by PR teams. I don't think anyone would have told him to do what he did. He could have done this on his own.
There was probably a different way to do it, but it was done by the club and the player. It was obvious that the relationship was failing or had failed when I had a debate with Roy, Jimmy, Floyd, and Dave about it in the studio. If both sides are mature, exits don't have to be this way.
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It seems that the meeting didn't happen. It doesn't seem like he has reached out to the club and opened communication lines. It's ended up in an unsavoury situation where it looks like it's going to be the last time we see him at Man United. He's one of the greatest players to ever play the game, and also one of the greatest ever players for Man United.
Sometimes it's hard. When players left Man United, it didn't always end in the right way, and it never felt right. It doesn't feel right for someone I played with to leave the club in this way, or for the club to end it this way.
Is it possible for him to return to United?
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I don't think he wants to go back to Man United. If he wanted to return, he wouldn't do this interview. He knew the interview would bring a lot of attention to it and end his career.
If you do that in any business, if you criticize, then it's a club point of view. At this moment in time, I'm not sure what Man United are doing because they know they have to end the contract of Cristiano if they want any player to criticize them.
If you're an employee within a business and you say that things have to be terminated, Man United will no doubt have to do that. It didn't need to end that way. They had a chance to come together a couple of weeks ago and navigate a smooth path through the rough seas to the shore, but they didn't.
The pictures we saw appeared to show a cold handshake between the two men. Will the players be disappointed?
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The players will be very upset. It's where my criticism for the player came from. I don't care about his relationship with the manager but one thing you don't do is stay strong in the dressing room.
When, for the second time, he left the ground before the end of a match, that wasn't the professional behavior you'd expect of a player with that background, and what he would know is the right and wrong things to do. If he had a problem with Ten Hag at the end of the match, he could have gotten into his car and left.
At the end of the day, he has fallen below his standards. He will realise that in the future but he won't enjoy this time in his life. There are times when we don't behave or do the things we want to do when we have these moments. I believe he is going through one of those times.
He is a sensitive and vulnerable person, for all his greatness and special talent, as most people are. At times, he looked like a lost sheep when he spoke.
He's done it and you have to applaud someone who speaks their mind. He needs to come out and speak his mind. I've been wanting to hear from him for the last three months because he's left other players and his manager at the club to answer the difficult questions for him. I think it's a positive that he's answered all of them now.
He doesn't like the man. What do you think the manager will do after the interview?
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The first six months at United have been very difficult for ten Hag. I don't believe he could have changed anything. He's a monster of a player and a monster of a character. If he takes him on, he's probably not going to win. We know he has problems with the player because he leaves him out.
They should have gotten together a few weeks ago and said, "We don't like each other, we don't want this to continue, so let's end it." There hasn't been proactive leadership. It doesn't happen in football when you're dealing with such a big character and special player and they've shied away from it. He won't accept that. He won't sit there and think he's going to get bashed.
When you're a football player, you do suffer from paranoia when you think everyone is against you. Some people are againstRonaldo. Even if people criticize him, they will still have enormous respect and love for him as a player and for what he has done.
It looks like a person who thinks the world is against him. It doesn't need to be that way. The club needs to get in touch with his advisers and make sure this ends quickly. It isn't necessary for it to be like that by the day.
He thinks you've spoken about him to get attention for yourself. What do you think about that, and what do you think about him now?
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All's fair in love and war, that's what he said. I accept criticism and get a lot of it back. I played with a lot of my team mates. He's dropped below a standard I know he has and has set previously in his behavior, so I'm disappointed he's dropped below a standard I know he has. I have seen that happen many times in my life. I think he's a little bit uneasy at this point in time because he's a good human being.
He isn't handling the last part of his career as well as he can. He has that mentality that I can't describe to anyone else. They can't accept things going against them or obstacles being put in their way because of a monster mentality. They think everyone is against them. I am not against him. I can't have any more respect for him.
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He's the best player I've ever played with, and he's the most talented player I've ever played with. I think about what he has said about me in the past and I want him to say more. He should have been out there speaking for his team-mates when they were having a hard time.
All is fair in love and war, we live in the game of the media, we have to accept criticism. It's part of the game, and he might think I sometimes criticize him. The world we live in is what we call it. I live on television with people at Sky every day and we have huge arguments and debates but we don't shake each other's hand at the end of it. I'd still shake his hand, but he might not. I don't keep going.
The club has been stagnant since Sir Alex Ferguson's time in charge. Does he have something to say about that?
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I've made that point stronger than anyone else. It's the first time I've heard someone say it who's been in the club as a player, so there will be a lot of Manchester United fans who will welcome his honesty.
The club has suffered badly and has failed in the last decade. He joined the club 18 months before. He knew that the club was stagnant and that it was falling well below the standards it had set before.
The standards were brought up and worked with by the man, who was trying to bring them forward. He said players are not what they used to be. When we came through in the 90s, people used to say that. It's not true, it's what people in their 40s, 50s, and 30s say about young people.
When I was a child, my grandparents used to tell me that I didn't know how lucky I was. All of our parents and grandparents have said that. The social media era is very different than the one we are born in.
Football players nowadays are more resilient than they were 20 years ago because of the criticism they get on social media and the scrutiny that's on them, there's 50 cameras in their face every single minute of their on-the-field lives and off-the- field lives. We used to be able to have a drink without being filmed or photographed. The current generation of player is under a lot more scrutiny than they were 25 years ago.
I think these guys have their own element of toughness in them that I've seen in the last few years with some of their team-mates, like Marcus Rashford, who has taken on huge political and social fights and won, and people like Jordan Henderson, who has also taken on The resilience of the modern British player is demonstrated by the fact that international players like Juan Mata set up a small percentage of their wages a few years ago.
The players are showing great qualities. I have never seen a league like the premier league. It's better now than it was 15 years ago when I was in the league with him.
I don't think it's fair to criticize the young players at Man United and the way they are perceived because that's not true and I don't believe it to be true. When we arrived at United, we were fortunate to have great leaders. We had a great leadership group that looked after him, comforted him, lived with his on-the-pitch immaturity, and worked with him with the coaching team to make him as good as he possibly could. These young players need that. They need direction and information. I don't believe that has happened in the last 18 months.
Do you believe these comments will hurt Alejandro Garnacho? He scored his first goal in the premier league in the last minute, and then he hears comments from someone he admires.
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I don't know if the comments were made at Garnacho or not. Maybe they weren't. The young boy scored that goal on Sunday. It wasn't a similar goal to the one that he scored at Cottagers, but it was in the same area of the pitch and it felt like a significant moment in his career, as that goal was for him that day.
I would have rung Piers Morgan and said, "Look just pull it back until tomorrow, let's let the young kid have his night, let's let the young kid have the headlines tomorrow." I thought that was a bad idea.
I think of myself as a player in a dressing room with a group of people and there were fights between the management and the group of people in the dressing room. We had each other's backs and looked after each other internally.
On Sunday night, when his team mate has just scored a last-minute winner, his team had scored a last-minute winner, and the young boy had just scored a hero goal in a great moment, it would have been better for him to put back his announcement of his interview until The reality is that it is what it is.
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I'm hoping that he chose to do it on his own and that he wasn't told to do it by his team. I like the idea of modern football players being micro-managed to within an inch of their lives and not being able to speak openly and criticize people.
I'm happy for the player to come back and hit me if I criticize them on TV. It should be like that. They don't need to be wrapped up in cotton wool all the time. I don't want more players to do those types of interviews because I want them to do better. He might have timed it better if the boy had scored the goal on Sunday because it was an important moment for that child.
What do you think will happen toRonaldo? Where do you think he'll go?
I have no idea where he is. He needs to find a place that will accept the way he wants his career to end. One of these can happen but when it happens twice it is a pattern.
It's important for him to choose a club that suits him at the end of his career because that's what he wants. He wants to be playing every single week regardless of whether the team is better for it or he is better for it, and he needs to find a place that suits his final years.
Piers Morgan Uncensored is on TalkTV on Thursday at 8PM.
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