The last two weeks have seen jubilant Manchester United fans celebrate the return of Cristiano Ronaldo, who could make his second debut for the club this weekend as Newcastle United make the trip to Old Trafford.
His return does, however, come with complications. Daniel James has already been sold by the club, despite starting two of the three games United played before Ronaldo’s arrival.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has a plethora of attacking options to choose from and if Ronaldo is one of the first names on the teamsheet, Edinson Cavani, Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford, Paul Pogba, Jadon Sancho, and Anthony Martial will all be fighting for places on either side of him.
Manchester United cult-hero Dimitar Berbatov has now suggested that Martial could be one of the casualties of Ronaldo returning but the Bulgarian, who was teammates with Martial at Monaco, has retained hope the Frenchman could ‘surprise everybody’.
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“This is my only regret of this [Ronaldo] situation, maybe Anthony is a bit left out and maybe he is going to be the casualty of all this,” Berbatov told the Manchester Evening News.
“But we don’t know yet. We can speculate as long as we can but maybe he will surprise everybody with even harder performances on the pitch.
“Because Ronaldo is in the team automatically, everybody else – especially the young players – will want to raise their game and bar, performing on the training pitch and in the games.
“In the case of Anthony, if he doesn’t get playing time as much as he wants then I will see him leave the club at some point, to be honest.”
Martial made a goalscoring return to the French national team earlier this month, scoring in their 1-1 draw with Ukraine. The 25-year-old missed Euro 2020 due to a knee injury.
