💣 Pressure on pre-Rangnick Ronaldo as impressive Arsenal visit Man Utd | OneFootball

“He is not signing to sit on the bench. He is going to make us a better team,” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told reporters in August, with Cristiano Ronaldo on the verge of completing his return to Manchester United.

Fast-forward three months and Solskjaer is out of a job, Manchester United are performing worse than last season, and Ronaldo started on the bench when United visited league leaders Chelsea at the weekend.

The following day he was not sitting and watching in Paris, notably absent as the world’s media voted him outside of the Ballon d’Or top three for the first time since 2010.

And now a power struggle between the Portuguese and new boss Ralf Rangnick is already being assumed before the German has even taken charge of a training session.

“Ralf Rangnick is now the most important man at Man Utd – if Cristiano Ronaldo is a casualty of his new regime, so be it,” read a Telegraph headline on Tuesday.

The Guardian had gone with “Remote hand of Rangnick already in play as Ronaldo feels the chill” the day before, insinuating, as Gary Neville did, that Rangnick had encouraged caretaker boss Michael Carrick not to pick Ronaldo at Stamford Bridge.

“That’s not the case, no,” Carrick insisted before the game.

“Cristiano is probably our standout name, but it’s just gameplan, ideas. I had a good chat with Cristiano actually, he was great, and we’ve decided to go like that today.

“It’s a decision just to pick a team, to be honest. I don’t think it needs more drama than that.”

Rangnick’s work permit did not arrive as quickly as hoped and Carrick will again be in the dugout against Arsenal, a game Ronaldo will surely start.

However, with all the talk surrounding the 36-year-old and what his new boss will do with him, the pressure to deliver is on.

That pressure comes against an Arsenal team, and an Arsenal defence in particular, that is hard to get a good read on.

Arsenal have six clean sheets this season — only the top three have more — but have conceded 17 goals in their other seven outings. Mikel Arteta’s side turned a corner after an awful start to the season saw them lose three in a row, but an eight-game unbeaten run came to an abrupt end in a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool.

They were back on track against Newcastle last weekend and sit fifth in the league, five points above United.

But are they actual top four contenders? And can they stop collapsing every time they face one of the league’s best attacks?

All of which means Thursday is massive for both sides.

Arsenal, having ended a 17-year wait for a league win at Old Trafford last season, could make a real statement.

Win and they will go fourth and stretch the gap between the sides to a daunting eight points, proving that a corner really has been turned and a new era has begun.

United are just about to enter their own new beginning and just where Cristiano Ronaldo fits in remains blurry.

He could go someway to silencing those critics with a big performance but another quiet one — he has just one goal in his last 645 minutes in the Premier League — could make it a lot easier for Rangnick to start building a side without taking the Portuguese into consideration.