Maguire: Manchester United s dilemma should not be attributed to Ronaldo, the team has not formulated effective tactics around Ronaldo

August 12th Maguire shared his views on Ronaldo's second play for Manchester United, detailing the situation that led to the tragic end of the Portuguese superstar at the club.

Ronaldo originally joined Manchester United in the summer of 2003 and returned to the club in the summer of 2021. At that time, Manchester United had just won second place in the Premier League under the leadership of then-head coach Solskjaer.

Maguire praised Ronaldo's talent on the Ferdinand podcast, despite the club's poor form. Manchester United has experienced a difficult 2021/22 season and ended up being sixth in the Premier League standings. Despite the disappointing end result, Ronaldo scored 24 goals in 38 games.

"I can't say anything bad about him," said Maguire. "It's great to have him. Even the moment he just walked into the gate, it was incredible. It was just that the ending was so disappointing that we couldn't find a way to get him into the team and play. He was doing well on the court and kept scoring goals. It was crazy, I don't know how many goals he scored that year. We performed badly and he was still scoring. It just shows how good he was."

"Our system under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is all about offensive football, active-mindedness, and Movement, high-level oppression. It's all about oppression like a machine. We're not the best team, we finished second and third. We have some great players, don't get me wrong, but everything revolves around tactics and efforts to maintain the formation structure. Obviously, after Ronaldo came, we just didn't make good adjustments for him, you can see how frustrated and upset he was."

Maguire continued to praise Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's coaching career and praised the Norwegian's management ability. He added:

"It was a season where everyone was extremely frustrated. We couldn't believe what happened. We obviously finished second and third before, and then that season we signed Rafael Varane and Ronaldo. You'd think, 'Okay, now we're going to win the Premier League.' But it never happened, we never formed a tacit understanding, we lost Solskjaer, which was disappointing. I think Solskjaer did an amazing job. I'll talk about him more when I retire, but the system he built for us in those two years was when I felt the best on the team."

Finally, Maguire said that Manchester United's dilemma should not be blamed on Ronaldo. He claimed the team failed to develop effective tactics around the five-time Golden Globe winner.

"It has nothing to do with Ronaldo because, like I said, he was undoubtedly the best player of our year. The tactics around him just didn't work," Maguire said.

Ronaldo finally left Manchester United in December 2022 after both sides agreed to terminate the contract.