Surprise, surprise: Cristiano Ronaldo may stay at Real Madrid

The other day, irreversible. Today, reversed. According to Spanish sports newspaper AS, Cristiano Ronaldo is rethinking his exit from Real Madrid, after club president Florentino Pérez said some nice things about him. They quote Pérez as telling Spanish radio:

Cristiano is not a man who goes Behind the money. He is hurt and may be right, because he has not tried to hurt anyone. Christian is not a business.It is part of the history of Madrid.

And that Ronaldo considered this to be "very positive".

This is, of course, no great shock to anybody: the stories always felt less like a genuine decision to leave and more like a strop. And the handy thing about a strop is it can be soothed with the right words. Perhaps the only surprise is that this didn't come in August, after Ed Woodward had wasted spent several fruitless months on the transfer. The Bring Ronaldo Home movement may not ruin United's summer after all.

(Our thanks, as ever, to Dr. G. Translate.)