Man Utd are 'coming together' after Cristiano Ronaldo departure

Manchester United midfielder Christian Eriksen has revealed that the squad is ‘coming together’ following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo last month.

Ronaldo’s place at the club became untenable in the wake of an incendiary TalkTV interview in November, having regularly been left out of the team by manager Erik ten Hag in the early months of the season. Ten Hag was one of his targets in the interview.

The 37-year-old had his United contract terminated by mutual consent a few days after reporting for duty with Portugal for the World Cup. He proceeded to have a poor tournament in Qatar, while United have comfortably beaten Burnley and Nottingham Forest since club football resumed.

“First of all we are sad that Ronaldo is not part of it, his legacy and his name at any club is special, for me to be fortunate to play with him in my career was very nice,” Eriksen said in the wake of the 3-0 victory over Forest at Old Trafford.

“The football goes on. You feel that the next game after, people will forget what it was like before and now our focus is really like he is not here. The atmosphere is good, we have a lot of people coming back from the World Cup, the last guys are coming back and everyone is coming together.

“The atmosphere is good. It helps winning games and also before we went away for the World Cup we had a few good games and good wins and it makes it easier to come back and start like this.”