Ronaldo dropped from squad for Man Utd clash with Chelsea

Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo has been dropped from the squad ahead of the weekend’s Premier League clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

The decision, confirmed by the club on Thursday afternoon, comes the day after Ronaldo was an unused substitute for the win over Tottenham but left the side of the pitch before the game had finished and subsequently departed the stadium.

A statement read: “Cristiano Ronaldo will not be part of the Manchester United squad for this Saturday’s game against Chelsea. The rest of the squad is fully focused on preparing for that fixture.”

United manager Erik ten Hag was asked about the Ronaldo situation live on Amazon Prime Video after the Spurs game and said he would ‘deal’ with it the next morning.

Ronaldo asked to leave United during the summer transfer window. And while Ten Hag insisted publicly at the time that the 37-year-old remained part of the plans, he was later prepared to let him go, leading Sporting CP and Napoli to both explore a potential deal.

90min also revealed earlier this month that Ten Hag is prepared to let Ronaldo leave in January.

With Ronaldo mostly out of favour this season – he came on as a sub in four successive games, all wins, against Liverpool, Southampton, Leicester and Arsenal – it has been reported by the Daily Mail that he ‘refused’ to come on late in the win over Spurs.

The Athletic also writes that Ronaldo has been banished from the first-team squad at the behest of Ten Hag and won’t even continue training with his teammates, expected to train alone instead.