Ronaldo shares a big boost from Carrington

Monday 17 January 2022 14:44

Cristiano Ronaldo is seemingly back in full Manchester United training after sharing a ‘winning team’ photo on Instagram, alongside Marcus Rashford and long-term absentee Paul Pogba.

Our Portuguese no.7 missed the Emirates FA Cup and Premier League double header against Aston Villa as a precaution due to a slight hip problem that was giving him trouble.

Ralf Rangnick told us on Saturday evening that Ronaldo had missed Friday’s session and, after a conversation, they decided it didn’t make sense for him to travel to Birmingham. Instead, the 36-year-old was allowed to recover with a view to playing against Brentford on Wednesday night.

Rashford also missed the trip to Villa Park with a dead leg, but he is thankfully pictured in Ronaldo’s Instagram post and that suggests the homegrown hero is also back in action at Carrington.

CR7 was on the winning team alongside Tom Heaton, Donny van de Beek, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Phil Jones and Luke Shaw.

The presence of Pogba in the ‘winning team’ is another great sight for supporters, given that the French midfielder has been out of action with an injury since the Atalanta match on 2 November.

Paul has been working hard on his rehabilitation and is seemingly ahead of schedule, based on this update that Rangnick gave on 6 January: “As far as I know, I was told a week ago, it would be a minimum of at least another four or five weeks before he is fit for training again.

“I saw him this morning before the training session, he was in the locker room, and I hope he will be back as soon as possible. Right now, he’s not been part of the training group and, even if he was back whenever, two, three or four weeks, it will take some time.

“It’s one thing to be training fit but, on the other hand, he needs to be fit for the match and competition in the Premier League or the Champions League and this will still take some time.”

Rangnick may provide a fresh update on Ronaldo, Rashford and Pogba during his pre-match press conference on Tuesday.

THE STORY BEHIND 'WINNING TEAM'

Last week, Rangnick lifted the lid on the small-sided matches that breed so much competition at Carrington and often produce victory photos that the players love to share with fans.

“I mean, yesterday, we played 7v7 in a tournament with three teams,” said Ralf. “The other week, we did the same with 5v5 so we do that, depending on the number of players that are available.

“I’m a big fan of doing that once per week, those kind of competitions, because the players need to perform on a high level. The workload is good and you can see nobody can hide if you play 7v7 or 5v5.

“Everyone has to show up. If he doesn’t do that, it becomes obvious for the head coach and the team members.”

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