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Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville recently spoke about the most difficult players he had faced while training at Carrington. The former English right-back played against some world-class players at the peak of the Sir Alex Ferguson era at Old Trafford.
Speaking to Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold on The Overlap, Neville said (via TBR Football):
"I played against Cristiano Ronaldo a couple of times where he came over to my side, it was tough. I don’t think he enjoyed it either though. At the time, he was quite young, and I was experienced."
He added:
"I wasn’t fazed by him because I’d played against him every day. I always say this, the best players I played against were in training – Giggs, Ronaldo, and Rooney."
Gary Neville won eight Premier League titles at United, three of which he shared with Cristiano Ronaldo, with the latter leaving for Real Madrid in 2009 while Neville retired at Old Trafford in 2011.
Gary Neville talks about how Cristiano Ronaldo frustrated Manchester United players in his early days
Manchester United signed Cristiano Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon in the summer of 2003. He was a teenager back then, who was full of tricks but lacked the consistency to be a threat over the course of a season.
Speaking during The Overlap podcast (via GOAL), Neville remembered Ronaldo's early days at Old Trafford. He said:
“When Ronaldo came, he was quite scrawny and had not developed his body. His decision-making was erratic, if he should have crossed it, he dribbled, if he should’ve dribbled, he crossed it. He always frustrated the players in the middle because he’d go to cross it and they’d make the run and then he would turn back."
Neville compared Ronaldo's early days with Beckham, stating the latter was a better teammate.
"He was all over the place and I actually lost faith with him because he wasn’t delivering in an attacking sense, but he also didn’t run back that much - he wasn’t really helping. Whereas Becks, he was always running back and we were always doubling up - I always had help. It was quite frustrating."
The former Manchester United captain concluded that Ronaldo then transformed himself after the end of the 2005-06 season. Neville said:
"In 2006, he scored [against England] and that’s when he knocked us out of the World Cup in Germany. He came back and all of a sudden his physique and his body had changed and that season, in 2006, when we first won the league again, he had a transformation into this machine and I think he scored 35-40 goals.”
Overall, Ronaldo has registered 145 goals and 64 assists in 346 games for Manchester United.
