Speculation that Cristiano Ronaldo did not miss Sunday's derby day defeat to Manchester City due to injury has grown after it was discovered that his sister liked a post claiming he had been dropped for tactical reasons.
Manchester United fell to yet another defeat to a close rival at the weekend as they were hammered by neighbours City 4-1 at the Etihad. United's chances were already slim but they looked bleaker still when it was revealed the night before the match that Ronaldo was not in the squad, as well as Raphael Varane, Luke Shaw and Edinson Cavani.
Ralf Rangnick explained ahead of the match that a hip injury had sidelined the 37-year-old. He told MUTV: “Varane and Shaw tested positive for Covid in midweek, Edi trained well in the last three days but in the end he didn’t feel quite well enough to be able to play. Cristiano had problems with his hip flexor on Friday and hasn’t trained since."
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However, before and after the defeat, it's been speculated that the injury was a cover and that Ronaldo was missing the match for another reason - with United great Roy Keane claiming his absence 'doesn't add up'.
Further fuel has been added to the fire as it transpired that ahead of kick-off, Ronaldo's sister, Kaita Aveiro, liked a post on Instagram which claimed Ronaldo wasn't injured. The post, which was published by a Ronaldo fan account @cr7.o_lendario, translates from Portuguese to read: "Cristiano Ronaldo is not injured and he is not ill. The man is 100 per cent.
"Good morning to you who, like me, are sad and angry because Rangnick decided to ruin our Sunday by taking CR7 out of the derby against Manchester City simply for tactical reasons, to defend himself more in the game."
Ahead of kick-off, Keane expressed his confusion over the situation while on punditry duty for Sky Sports. He said: "There seems to be. I just don’t like it when the manager talks about this hip flexor, I don’t get it
"We talk about Ronaldo being some sort of machine, he's very rarely injured and then every now and again he comes out with something like that and says hip flexor. It doesn’t add up to me."
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