Ronaldo's United legacy is tarnished.

The Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo has misjudged the situation as badly as any of the countless crosses for which he has been called offside so far this season.

His negative attitude has, for the second month in a row, completely obscured the positive results of a Manchester United victory in which he had no part. This has been a reoccurring trend for United this season, and that theme is that they are doing better without Ronaldo.

Due to his illness, Ronaldo did not make it to London or to the match against Aston Villa on Thursday night (United won both). While he was holding court with Piers Morgan, he appeared to be in good enough health to unload on his manager and club.

It does not matter when the interview was actually recorded. The timing was as bad as any run that Ronaldo has had this season. He will not be able to play for United again for the next six weeks (as if he were going to hurry back for Burnley in the League Cup), and he has created a tempest that will not abate in the near future.

Alejandro Garnacho's game-winning goal at Craven Cottage brought up memories of Ronaldo's game-winning goal at the Putney End 15 years earlier. Ronaldo was aware that the first clips would be broadcast several hours after the floodlights at Craven Cottage had been turned off. This is the Ronaldo that fans of Manchester United will want to keep in their memories.

As this article is being written, Manchester United are reluctant to make any immediate comments on Ronaldo's explosive remarks. Sources stress that it would not dampen the joyous conclusion to the victory at Fulham, where the atmosphere that Erik ten Hag has fostered amongst the players and spectators was on full display once more.

On Wednesday, during an event held for club supporters at the Carrington training site, a supporter from Middleton expressed gratitude to Ten Hag for reviving the club's tradition of fierce competition. No matter how good or bad they are, the players on the field for United give it their all every time they play at Craven Cottage. Ronaldo doesn't anymore.

Ten Hag has the support of the spectators, not Ronaldo. At Craven Cottage or at Stamford Bridge, three weeks earlier, where he had been dropped for refusing to emerge during the victory over Tottenham, he was not serenaded by anyone. Neither venue.

The true supporters of Manchester United are among the most principled and by far the most supportive fans that Cristiano Ronaldo has ever come across in his illustrious career. They have never jeered at him before, but he is challenging them to do so now.

Many people believe that Ronaldo will go down in history as the best player they ever saw wearing red. He has made the experience of following the club more enjoyable for fans, and they will always remember his debut against Bolton, his goals at Highbury, his counterattacking, his free kicks, and Viva Ronaldo on the Moscow metro as highlights of their time spent doing so. Not the most recent theatrical production.

It cannot be said that Ronaldo has been "betrayed." The article that was published in The Sunday Times with the headline "Cristiano Ronaldo tells Manchester United: it's time for me to leave" was written by a reporter who is well-known for his connections to the Gestifute agency, which is run by Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes. He has never once denied the veracity of that article.

Since then, Ronaldo has absconded from a friendly match that he was playing in at Old Trafford and has been seen sneaking out of the stadium before the match is over against Tottenham after declining to play. Any betrayal that occurs comes from the player themselves.

If you rebel once, it might be seen as a mistake, but if you do it twice, it might be seen as a sign of selfishness. What is this, if the incident with Tottenham was an anomaly, a rush of blood to the head, and a misrepresentation of possibly the most professional player who has ever played the game?

The long-awaited interview that Ronaldo had promised all the way back on August 17 has finally taken place. He made the comment on a flattering Instagram page, saying that in two weeks he would reveal the "truth." That is, when the opportunity to transfer players expired.

Only Ronaldo was left behind in Manchester after everyone else had left. Mendes shopped Cristiano Ronaldo around Europe, but no team, including Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Sporting Lisbon, Napoli, or AC Milan, was willing to offer Ronaldo a way out of their current contracts.

It should not have been a surprise that Ronaldo would select Morgan to lead the interview; doing so was an error on Ronaldo's part. As a result of Morgan's allegiance to Arsenal and his partisan coverage as the editor of The Daily Mirror during the clubs' rivalry in the late 1990s and early 2000s, long-time supporters of Manchester United do not like him.

A penny also for the thoughts of Ronaldo's surrogate father, Sir Alex Ferguson, who once told a reporter to "tell your editor to f—k off to Highbury and stagnate." Ronaldo's surrogate father is Sir Alex Ferguson. Morgan served as the editor.

Ferguson's intervention was what changed Ronaldo's course from the Etihad to Old Trafford on that hectic Friday in August 2021, as this newspaper revealed at the time. Ronaldo's new path took him to Old Trafford. Both clubs have remained silent about it, but Ronaldo has at least broken their vow of silence by confirming it.

Ronaldo explained to Morgan that he had "followed my heart." "Sir Alex Ferguson told me, 'It is impossible for you to come to Manchester City,' and when he said that to me, I responded, 'Okay, Boss.'"

A little over nine years after moving to the upper level of the south stand, Ferguson, a manager whose guiding principle was that no player is more important than the club, is to blame for yet another mess.

It is highly likely that he will maintain his silence in order to preserve his salary as an ambassador as well as the row of seats in the directors' box that bear a plaque bearing his name on each seat. However, the decision-makers at United need to tell him to stop sticking his nose into other people's business.