McClaren believes Ronaldo's expulsion from Manchester United was the right thing to do

In the autumn of 2022, there was a high-profile scandal from the Manchester United camp when Cristiano Ronaldo left Old Trafford. However, Erik ten Hag's former assistant at the team, Steve McClaren, believes the Dutchman made the right decision to say goodbye to the Portuguese.

According to McLaren, ten Hag has no favourite or unfavourite players, there are uniform criteria set for everyone and if someone doesn't meet them, they need to leave the team:

‘I can't fault his [ten Hag's] approach. He actually handled it very well. I said at the time that he was the right person for the job. You could see that in the way he handled the departure of Ronaldo. He was tough on that issue. So were the Dutch. He knew it was what was needed. There was no flexibility, the players couldn't manoeuvre away from that responsibility.

It was something you had to do - or not play. So he took Ronaldo on, and quite rightly so. Other managers tried to adapt. Eric didn't see fit to do it. Rangnick tried, but it didn't work out, and neither did Solskjaer. So he ten Hag stuck to his opinions and developed other players,’ McClaren said in a conversation with The Telegraph.