Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri has taken a swipe at Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo by saying his side are ‘more of a team’ this campaign after ‘putting personal targets aside’.
Ronaldo spent three years at Juventus after leaving Real Madrid in 2018, scoring 101 goals in 134 games for the Italian giants and helping them win two Serie A titles and the Coppa Italia.
The Portugal legend left Turin last summer to secure a return to United, with his former club Juventus currently only fourth in Serie A.
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Despite Juve’s struggles this season, Allegri insists they ‘feel more like a team’ and is pleased that ‘personal targets’ have been put to one side.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Allegri said: ‘I think that personal targets have been put aside and there is more focus on the team. ‘We have been together for six or seven months now. We are knowing each other a little more, we feel more like a team.’
Allegri’s comments appear to tally with those of Juve legend Leonardo Bonucci, who previously criticised Ronaldo for ‘thinking he could solve all the matches’ on his own.
Asked if the Serie A club are playing more as a team without Ronaldo, Bonucci said in October: ‘It’s absolutely true.
‘In the recent past we had lost this characteristic from Juve, we were playing with a great champion like CR7 and we wanted to put him in a position to always do well, thinking he could solve all the matches.
‘This year we are rediscovering that right humility that it serves to regain victory.’
Ronaldo has scored 15 goals in 26 appearances for the Red devils this campaign, but Jamie Carragher believes re-signing the 37-year-old was a ‘mistake’.
‘United made a mistake re-signing Ronaldo last summer. It will be a bigger one keeping him next season,’ he wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph.
‘No single player can ever be bigger than the club. And no-one knew that better than Sir Alex Ferguson who, in 2006, sold one of the Premier League most prolific goalscorers, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, because he felt the striker’s personal hunger for goals was inhibiting the progress of younger, emerging team-mates.
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‘If his United reunion is limited to one season, letting him go will solve more problems than it creates.’
