Staying put - for now

Well, well. Who would've known. Seems that the Ronaldo-Madrid transfer saga has ended - at least for now. And seems that he's staying at Old Trafford - at least for now. The full transcript of his interview with a Portuguese paper can be found at Guardian's football site.

Short of a press conference with Fergie by his side, the interview is the closest you can get to a concrete statement from Ronnie on his future. He says all the right things, that he takes full responsibility for wanting to move, that he didn't want to move because of money, how he's "grateful" to United (reason why he sees a potential world-record transfer fee as his "gift" to the club), and his denial of his support of Blatter's slavery comments (though it was said during a TV interview), bla bla bla bla bla.

Personally, I still don't forgive him for the way he has handled this. To be fair, I accept and understand his reasons for leaving, as I've pointed out in an earlier post. What I CAN'T accept is the timing of him letting us know of his intentions - on the triumphal night of United's Euro win in Moscow itself. The whole summer (or at least the couple weeks after Moscow), the backpages of newspapers worldwide should be filled with praises, analyses and reports of United's unprecendented double triumph. However what we get are "will he or won't he?" articles on Ronaldo. So much so that - together with the Euro tourney - people have all but forgotten the TEAM'S achievements. The least Ronnie could do was to wait until the Euro started, better still AFTER Portugal were kicked out. You get this feeling that the transfer saga even affected his own performance at the tournament.

In the meantime, even if he is staying - say it with me, at least for now - he's still crocked until October, and United have an injury crisis for the first few games of the season. Nani's still banned for that stupid red card last season, Rooney and Carrick both have a "mysterious" African virus, Hargreaves, Saha and Park are all injured (what's new?), and Anderson's at the Olympics. And it's been quiet on the transfer front with United and Spurs stil not agreeing on a price for Berbatov. Oh well, at least we're only playing unlucky Newcastle at home on the first day - my outside bet for relegation this season.