Cristiano Ronaldo is not just vital to Manchester United’s future, he is also key to Anthony Elanga’s.
Ronaldo proved he remains indispensable for United at 37 by scoring his 18th Premier League goal against Brentford to move to within two of Mohamed Salah in the race for the Golden Boot. Elanga claims the Portugal star is also hugely influential behind the scenes at United because of the advice he is giving young players like him.
The forward says Ronaldo is always talking to him, helping him improve. “You can see his record and the amount of goals he’s scored, I think it’s 100 in the Premier League now,” said Elanga. “He knows what it takes to get to the top so it’s more than just right to speak to someone like that. And, yeah, we have a chat the day before or even during a game. You might see us in the warm-up.
“He’ll speak to me and Sancho together about what we can do in the game to affect the game and it’s important to have someone like that in the team. He’s someone I look up to and speak to and ask for advice. He’s a special player to work with.”
Elanga has bonded with Ronaldo and the pair set a new Premier League record for the biggest age difference between an assist maker and goal scorer when he laid on one of his strikes for his hat-trick against Norwich.
There are 17 years between them and Ronaldo even invited Elanga to join him in his trademark double ‘Siuu’ goal celebration against Norwich. Elanga, 20, was chuffed to be asked and joked that Ronaldo executed the ‘Siuu’ much better than him.
“That was an exciting time, the double ‘Siuu’,” he said. “I didn’t expect it. He said ‘let’s do it’ and I said ‘fair enough’, but if you see in the video, I didn’t really get in the air properly. I did it anyway and it was a special moment.”
Ronaldo has taken Elanga under his wing and he has told the young Sweden star to look for each other when either of them makes a run into the opposition box. “We speak before about how we’re going to work in terms of pressing,” he said. “If I get an opportunity, to look up, and if he gets an opportunity to look up for me as I’ll be in the box or he’ll be in the box. I’m really enjoying it.”
Elanga set up Bruno Fernandes for United’s opener against Brentford and he has three goals and two assists from this breakthrough season. He is starting ahead of Marcus Rashford and he admits he is surprised with his progress this season.
“At the start, I probably didn’t think I’d be doing exactly what I’m doing now,” he said. “At the same time, you always believe in yourself and you never know. I’m very pleased with what’s happening individually wise. Collectively, we can still do better and we will do better.”
