Manchester United interim manager Ralph Rangnick said Cristiano Ronaldo’s future will be decided in time, but insisted it was important to know what the player wanted.
The German also admitted that he expected the club to be in the market for new strikers.
The Portugal international’s future has become a topic of debate in recent weeks after reports indicated that new manager Erik ten Hag was not keen on working with him.
Ronaldo has arguably been United’s best player this season, scoring 23 goals in all competitions so far, including Thursday night’s equalizer against Chelsea.
“This is something we have to talk about between Eric, the board and me,” Rangnick said in his post-match conference. “Cristiano has another year of contract.”
“It’s also important to know what he wants, if he wants to stay.”
In a separate interview with Sky Sports, he confirmed: “In the end, the decision of Eric and Chris is also what they want to do. Not for me to talk about that but, today, Chris’ performance was really great.”
Ronaldo has scored eight of the club’s last nine goals in the Premier League, underlining his importance.
“We have to be fair with the players,” he said. “We had quite a few other players who scored goals, I remember, in my first 10 games, we had 10 different scorers. It’s the number of chances we can create and the number of scorers.
“At the moment we depend a lot on Cristiano, he also showed a good performance when Chelsea were in possession of the ball. But there has to be a focus on bringing in two new strikers for sure.”
Rangnick is set to step down from his role at the end of the current season, with Ajax’s Ten Hag taking the reins.
