A very good article from Peter Gill of Football365.com.

He talks about Ronaldo's ego and his intension.

I do agree with him that Ronaldo having won all the major titles in England and Europe, he has no more desire to win more with United. If United were to sell him, United should be asking for a higher price than 75M. Make the offer harder for Madrid to buy as the best footballer in the world will not come cheap.

Here the article :-

'Why would Ronaldo want to leave the champions of Europe?' asked one perplexed Mailboxer this week. Only the man himself can produce the definitive answer, but it is probably precisely because Manchester United are the champions of Europe and England that Ronaldo wants to leave.

As a Manchester United player, he has nothing left to prove or win. If he has concluded that two Premier League titles, one FA Cup, one Carling Cup and one European Cup amount to a satisfactory haul from his five-year haul in England, then who can argue? He has become a visitor from his own success.

The wording of the statement with which he finally confirmed his intention to leave Manchester this summer depicted money as fundamental to his choice. Yet what is money to Ronaldo, already a multi-millionaire at the age of 23? If simple greed was paramount in his outlook then his representatives would currently be in negotiations with United over a new deal, striving to engineer a bidding war between United and Madrid.

A £300,000-a-week wage - the amount Madrid are supposedly offering - is a sum that would capture anyone's attention, but the status that such a deal would confer on Ronaldo is equally persuasive. The supreme egoist, Ronaldo wants to be regarded as the best player in the world. Is there a more trenchant cause to claim that title than becoming the best-paid player in the world as well as the most expensive? Note that his statement stipulated that he was willing to join Madrid only if they "pay what Manchester United ask of them". Money matters to Ronaldo but not necessarily in the way that his detractors claim.

Not that labelling Ronaldo the supreme egoist is necessarily a rebuke either. Ronaldo's game is based on confidence and arrogance in much the same way as Thierry Henry's is/was on pace. Without belief, the tricks and outrageous showmanship would be redundant. Madrid's trick has been to feed that swollen ego by making Ronaldo the subject of the summer. He is, it is reasonable to presume, loving the attention as well as the blatant implication from Madrid's pursuit that only he alone - the greatest player on the planet - can save the Spanish giants from becoming also-rans on the continent (they may have won La Liga in successive years but it is four years since they progressed beyond the first knock-out stage of the Champions League).

There was a telling sight in the immediate moments after United's Champions League victory in Moscow. As the rest of the squad rushed forward, seemingly joined at the hip, towards Edwin van der Sar, Ronaldo stood alone before throwing himself to the turf. Perhaps it was an instinctive reaction of relief following his failure to score in the penalty shoot-out. Or perhaps it was the response of a showman still striving to hog the limelight, unable to share the drug of adulation. Only Ronaldo himself really knows, but the moment was memorable in so much as it was the first public indication that he had bought into the notion that he was the core individual in Manchester United's legendary one-man team.

Regardless of the money involved, Madrid's approach, dressed up as a plea for a one-man rescue act, has thus become too good for Ronaldo to turn down. Without it, another year, and the risk of relative failure, at Old Trafford would await. He may lack the modesty to ask himself such as question, but how could Ronaldo realistically improve on a season of 42 goals, a Premier League title, Champions League glory and another Player of the Year award? The challenge of resurrection that awaits in Spain is the one that his ego craves and requires to sustain itself.

United have repeatedly and strenuously insisted that they will not sell their prized asset and the issue now becomes collision of two truisms: the first that Sir Alex Ferguson never sells a player he wants to keep and the second that clubs, even the biggest kind, never keep players who want to leave. The likelihood is that Ferguson will eventually be worn down by Real's resolve and Ronaldo's agitating into accepting a deal. United will surely eventually follow Ronaldo's example and regard Madrid's offer as too lucrative to refuse. With the fee bound to exceed £70m, Ronaldo's departure would finance at least two high-profile signings, most probably either Dimitar Berbatov or Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and, given Carlos Queiroz's increasing influence, Porto's Ricardo Quaresma.

Although Quaresma would be a like-for-like replacement for Ronaldo, the arrival of a second striker would also enable United to move in a new direction. The flexible, interchanging 4-3-3 formation of last season was designed in part to reflect Ronaldo's evolution into a forward who was neither a winger nor a striker. As such, their development was reliant on his. Independent and once again masters of their own collective destiny, United could revert to a 4-4-2 system that would instead make Wayne Rooney and partner its centrepiece.

The question is whether Ferguson, now openly discussing his retirement, still possesses the energy for another rebirth. The 'Ronaldo team' should have been the last of his reign. Suddenly, and without warning, that plan has been scotched.

Yet the doom-mongers should tread carefully. Queiroz has already accepted the bulk of Ferguson's day-to-day responsibilities and the loss of Ronaldo will no doubt be offset by headline-grabbing arrivals. The temptation will be to depict Ronaldo's departure as a 42-goal reduction. It will be no such thing. Just as the £2bn supposedly lost by the British economy in the wake of England's elimination from Euro 2008 didn't go up in smoke at a giant bonfire, the player(s) who replace Ronaldo will provide their own number of assists and goals. It may not equate to the amount he produced in 2007/08 but it should suffice.

Regardless of whether Ronaldo stays or goes, Manchester United will still begin 2008/09 as the favourites to retain their domestic and European crowns.

Pete Gill

Transfer rumours.

Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor has agreed a deal to move to AC Milan but the asking price from the Gunners could prevent any switch.

Out-of-contract Zoltan Gera is close to signing for Fulham and turn down the offer of a new contract from West Brom.

Speculation on Ronaldo leaving United is still on. Barcelona are to join Real Madrid in the race to sign Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo, with Sandro Rosell using a pledge to sign the winger as his main weapon to be voted the next president at the Nou Camp. Real have again suggested that they are ready to abandon their attempts to sign Ronaldo as United do not want to sell him. But the Spanish club are prepared to pay Ronaldo £300,000-a-week after tax in a £75m deal over five years to lure him to the Bernabeu.

Blues striker Didier Drogba is unlikely to join Inter Milan as new boss Jose Mourinho has not put any strikers on his transfer list for the club.

Manchester City will sign Brazilian pair Jo, who plays up front for CSKA Moscow, and Barcelona playmaker Ronaldinho.