GRAEME SOUNESS: Look what Manchester United have reduced Cristiano Ronaldo to – it’s so sad!

It is a desperately sad situation Cristiano Ronaldo is in. This is a player who brought Manchester United to the fore and scored goals for them that will long be remembered – but look what that club reduced him to.

What we saw at Old Trafford when the team played Tottenham on Wednesday night was a player who was clearly angry, upset and deeply frustrated – stuck on a substitution bench while players he rightly considers superior were on the pitch.

For a player as fiercely competitive as he is, that must have been a torment. An experience he could never have imagined. I must say I can understand how he feels.

This is a situation created entirely by United. A problem they just didn’t have to create. Erik ten Hag has made bold and courageous decisions, trying to instill discipline and unity.

But how did he think this situation would work with Ronaldo? How did he think the player would respond to being asked to sit on a bench, run onto the sidelines and warm up, only to be left redundant and unused, with the cameras focused on every facial expression?

People should only talk about that performance against Tottenham, but instead it’s this. Ten Hag and United have shot themselves in the foot and have not helped themselves for a moment.

That Ronaldo has refused to come on the field at Ten Hag’s request is clearly something the manager cannot accept. Such a fundamental violation of team ethics is the first step on the road to ruin.

But it’s not hard to imagine the conversation between the two of them when changes were made and after 87 minutes he was asked to continue to turn back the clock. A three-minute roll at the end of a 2-0 win is a humiliation that this player did not expect to be reduced to.

Every player has to be ready to play, no matter how big or small the role, but I think that special attention should be given to Ronaldo, given his position in the game and his contribution to it.

He told United before the start of the season that he wanted to go. He made no pretensions about it. What followed is a lot like the club’s treatment of Jesse Lingard last season, only on a much larger scale. United could have sold Lingard to West Ham in January, chose not to and then not used him.

If I were Ten Hag I would be concerned about Ronaldo around because if you are not going to use him you know he will have a voice in the dressing room. That is certainly not conducive to a harmonious working environment.

The communication between manager and player is clearly not what it should be and despite what happened on Wednesday I think it is United’s duty to do better through him. Going to extreme lengths not to humiliate the man in such a way.

He will certainly feel that he is not being shown any respect at all in what is without a doubt the worst period of his career. He is tested in a way he never expected, in the twilight of his playing days.

He seemed to reflect that in the statement he made Thursday evening. These seemed to be the words of a man who took genuine responsibility for his actions, rather than running away from them. He was there yesterday at 8.30 am to train with the Under 21s.

But if the current situation continues and he has to endure more of these humiliations on the substitutes’ bench, his behavior could continue to suffer.

And that could lead to what I think will be the worst outcome of it all: that United supporters will remember him for what happens for the rest of this season, or at least for as long as he is detained in Manchester, instead of those golden years and glorious goals.

If this continues, United will destroy Ronaldo’s legacy. The least the club owes him is not to let that happen. To stop doing this to him.

My Turkish delight at derby win

The attack on Manchester City’s bus as it left Anfield last weekend cannot be tolerated in any way, although it did take me back to a similar episode in Istanbul in 1996, when I had planted a flag in the center circle of the grounds of Fenerbahçe na my The Galatasaray team had won the Turkish Cup there.

It was my response to one of their vice presidents, who had called me crippled for undergoing heart surgery. Two of our carriage windows were smashed as we left the ground and we all dove to the ground for cover.

Frightening? Not really. The elation of winning the cup was the predominant emotion, even as we lay on the floor.

Charity event reminded me not to rest

I’ve told a few locker rooms in my time as captain and manager that ‘we mustn’t rest’, but those words have never been more important to me than when I delivered them from a podium at the Landmark London hotel on Thursday afternoon.

The audience included friends and supporters of my charity DEBRA, which took a very big step by raising £5 million by the end of next year to fund medical research and young people with a terrible, life-threatening skin condition.

In the room was Isla, a young woman with the condition whose struggle and fortitude take me emotionally to places I’ve never known. She reminds me daily not to rest either.

Virgil Van Dijk showed up when it mattered

Virgil Van Dijk did what I asked him on these pages last weekend. Erling Haaland could still have scored two goals against Liverpool, but Van Dijk (above) insisted – getting back to the player he was.

When that challenge was presented to him, he proved many people wrong. Big players pop up in the big games. He came up.