David de Gea has appointed Cristiano Ronaldo the best players with whom he shared a dressing room with his 12-year spell at Manchester United. Now in Fiorentina he looked back to his time in Old Trafford and unpacked the five attackers who stood out for him as the most powerful.
The former goalkeeper of Red Devils explained how these attackers would keep him focused during an interview with La Repubblica (via Stretty News):
“Van Persie, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney, Ibrahimovic and Lukaku. But when they didn’t score against me in training, they also became frustrated.”
Van Persie pushed the club to their last Premier League title in 2013, two years after the Gea made the switch from Atletico Madrid to Old Trafford. Wayne Rooney was easily a club legend at the time. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a productive season 2016/17, so that the club won the EFL Cup, the Community Shield and the Europa League.
Romelu Lukaku may have trouble impressing Manchester United, but De Gea certainly has reasons for his admiration for the Big Belgian Spits. Cristiano Ronaldo left Old Trafford before the Spanish keeper joined the club. However, he returned for a second spell in 2021 and played until November 2023.
Former midfielder reveals how Cristiano Ronaldo changed his fitness approach at Manchester United
Danny Drinkwater has revealed how the work ethics of Cristiano Ronaldo changed his way of thinking when they were early in his career at Manchester United of teammates. The former midfielder came as a young boy in United’s books and was allowed to see Ronaldo’s turnout as a star.
Although drinking water never played for the Senior team of United, he remembers how Ronaldo returned from the summer vacation in the best form of his life. He told Rio Ferdinand Presents (via Mirror):
‘I remember he was coming back [to pre-season] And he looked like, I don’t know, he looked like he had hit the gym for a whole year, man. And I remember thinking: “Wow, as if he’s with the first team and he does that, as if we have to go for centuries.” And I remember that I then started going with the gym. “
Drinking water won the Premier League with Leicester in 2016 before a transfer with big money to Chelsea. On the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo won the Ballon d’Or in Manchester United, for his Mega-Move to Real Madrid in 2009, where he won four balloons d’Or.
Published by Vaishnavi Iyer