Man Utd stars believe Cristiano Ronaldo will push for January transfer after losing place to Marcus Rashford

MANCHESTER UNITED stars believe Cristiano Ronaldo is still angling for a move – and has his eye on a January exit.

The Portuguese superstar made it clear to Old Trafford bosses he wanted to leave before the season started.

Rex

AFP

Boss Erik ten Hag has preffered to start Marcus Rashford up top instead of Ronaldo[/caption]

But Ronaldo will now stay a United player until 2023 after the transfer window closed ten days ago without agent Jorge Mendes finding him a new club.

The likes of Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain all turned down the chance to sign him.

Meanwhile Ronaldo himself snubbed a switch to Saudi Arabia after being offered a whopping £2MILLION-a-week salary by an unnamed club.

SunSport exclusively revealed on Saturday how Erik ten Hag is confident of winning the Premier League this season… with Marcus Rashford leading the line instead on the five-time Ballon d’Or winner.

Ronaldo has been restricted to just one top-flight start this campaign, and has been named on the bench for the last four Premier League matches.

The striker, 37, cut a frustrated figure as he drew a blank in the Europa League against Real Sociedad on Thursday where he was named in the starting XI.

A source said: “All the players loved it when Ronaldo came back to United last season but they are frustrated he missed pre-season.

“The manager put a lot of work into giving the squad detailed information about what he wanted them to do and how he wanted them to play.

“Ronaldo is not up to speed with that and is relying on instinct when he plays. But that doesn’t work in Ten Hag’s system.

“He often demands the ball too early in build-up play and drops deep for the ball, but that means when the ball is wide there is no-one in the middle to hit it into.

“Ten Hag and the rest of the players really rate Ronaldo.

“But it’s clear that the success they have had this season is from following tactical instruction rather than the individual brilliance they relied on last season.

“Ronaldo is likely to find himself on the bench again going forward.

“And he is going to have to get used to scoring a lot less goals because he is only being introduced towards the end of games when Ten Hag has already made changes which make United less attacking.

“He needs to realise it’s only going to work if he tunes into ten Hag’s plans.”

Getty

Portugal international Ronaldo is in the final year of his contract at the Theatre of Dreams[/caption]