Why Cristiano Ronaldo misses Man Utd's clash vs Man City

Cristiano Ronaldo has missed Manchester United’s Premier League match against Manchester City due to a hip injury, according to Ralf Rangnick.

The 37-year-old has been left out of United’s matchday squad completely for their trip to the Etihad Stadium, while Raphael Varane and Luke Shaw are also absent after both tested positive for Covid.

Ronaldo is said to have suffered the injury during Friday’s training session.

‘Rapha Varane and Luke Shaw tested positive with Covid unfortunately in midweek,’ Rangnick told MUTV.

‘Edi [Cavani] trained well in the last three days but, at the end, didn’t feel quite well enough to be able to play.

‘And Cristiano had some problems with his hip flexor on Friday and since then he didn’t train.’

Ronaldo missed two games for United in January due to the same hip injury.

Speaking ahead of the game, former United defender Gary Neville claimed Ronaldo’s absence was not ‘a big loss’ for Rangnick.

‘Manchester United will be playing on the counter attack,’ Neville told Sky Sports.

‘United over the last three or four years, particularly under Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer], were a counter-attack team.

MAN CITY VS MAN UTD TEAMS

MAN CITY: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodrigo, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Mahrez, Grealish, Foden.

SUBS: Carson, Sterling, Gundogan, Jesus, Zinchenko, Fernandinho, Delap, Mbete, McAtee.

MAN UTD: De Gea, Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Telles, Fred, McTominay, Pogba, Elanga, Fernandes, Sancho.

SUBS: Henderson, Bailly, Jones, Dalot, Matic, Mata, Hannibal, Lingard, Rashford.

‘They were really comfortable sitting back, punching out through [Marcus] Rashford and others on the break and I think that will be exactly the same today.

‘Actually [with] Ronaldo not being in the team, I can never say it’s a positive, but I actually don’t see it as a big loss as I might do with other games because I think on the counter-attack United need to be dangerous today, and they’re better off with Rashford up front counter-attacking than they would be with Cristiano.’

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