Under Erik Ten Hag Cristiano Ronaldo Might Have New Responsibility At Manchester United

Lee Grant, who recently announced that he would be retiring from professional football, will leave Manchester United this summer. His departure might mean Cristiano Ronaldo will have a new responsibility.

Grant, a veteran goalkeeper, spent four seasons at Man Utd, but has only made two competitive appearances. The 39-year-old was essentially already a coach by his fourth and final season at the club. He was being named on team sheets as one last season. He is one of the most popular members of the Old Trafford dressing room. He is known for offering priceless experience and entertainment on a daily basis, Richard Fay wrote for Manchester Evening News. To have experienced figures like the veteran around is essential to any dressing room.

Edinson Cavani and Nemanja Matic will also leave the club soon, so now there is further emphasis on someone else to fill the void. Juan Mata has suggested he could stay if Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag offered him a contract extension. But if he does leave then David de Gea and Ronaldo will be the last of the veterans still at the club. They will have extra responsibility to lead off the pitch as well.

Hag might be given the quantitative task of replacing players who leave this summer. However, his toughest test will be the qualitative task of replacing exactly what it was that the veteran football players brought to the dressing room.

Meanwhile, former Man Utd legend Gary Neville said that Portuguese footballer Bruno Fernandes looks like "half the player" he once was at the club due to Ronaldo's presence. Fernandes finished the season as Man Utd's second-top scorer. He scored 10 goals in the Premier League that were eight fewer than Ronaldo. It is a significant drop from the 18 that he scored in the English top-flight in 2020-2021, reported Goal.

Fernandes is not the only player who has been affected by Ronaldo's return to Old Trafford last summer, said Neville. He feels that captain Harry Maguire and striker Cavani also suffered. Neville said that Cavani was being "pleaded to stay and lead the attack for the year, but when they signed Ronaldo, Cavani was shot then and finished. It upset the dynamic in the dressing room for Bruno." He thinks that Fernandes "looks up to him like a godfather in Portugal so it made him feel a bit inferior to what he was before." He added that it made "Maguire a little bit inferior as captain just naturally, nothing from Ronaldo’s doing this."