Ronaldo to return to Man Utd

BBC Sport takes a look back at some of Cristiano Ronaldo's greatest Premier League moments.

I was told yesterday that he told Juventus he was leaving, then we have this strange situation of him going to the training ground to pick up whatever he needed to pick up.

Max Allegri did his press conference before Pep and Ole, and he said that Ronaldo had come in and said 'right I'm leaving, that's it' and I don't think he wouldn't done that without knowing that there was something there from him. I assume from there he knew he was going to Manchester United.

When I spoke to people at City yesterday, they seemed to have been downplaying this momentum that had been building up. I wonder if it was always Ronaldo's intention to go to United if United expressed an interest.

I'd be interested to know what the reality was because it just feels very definite in the end that Ronaldo was going to and wanted to go to United.

I don't think that it's as simple as City didn't want to get involved so then he moved to United, but we may never know about that.

I'm surprised by the speed of this. Because even when I was reasonably confident that Ronaldo would sign for Man Utd, I wasn't expecting it to be done so quickly.

When you think the speed of transfers and conducting negotiations, all the various facets of what goes on in a transfer deal now, it does seem to have happened quite quickly.

It seems to be 48 hours from a Manchester United perspective that this started picking up, but still, it's pretty quick. It's been a strange day, that's for sure.

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Cristiano Ronaldo's return to Manchester United will be seen as a fairy-tale conclusion to a magnificent career, played out at 'The Theatre Of Dreams' he graced for so long.

The 36-year-old superstar has always held a special place in the hearts of everyone at Old Trafford after winning the Champions League, three Premier Leagues, the FA Cup and two League Cups in a glittering six-year stay under his mentor Sir Alex Ferguson before an £80m move to Real Madrid in 2009.

The current Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will rightly celebrate Ronaldo's landmark return - but it is also a double-edged sword for the Norwegian, who is still in search of his first trophy and cannot afford to wait much longer for success given more vast transfer outlay this summer.

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Interesting timing on this text message I've received from Manchester United.

Wonder why they are pushing membership sales today, has something happened? 😄😄

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Former Manchester United power development coach Mick Clegg talks through his experiences of working closely with Cristiano Ronaldo between 2003-2009 and offers insight into the training, mentality and mindset of the Portuguese forward during his time at Old Trafford.

Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has been tweeting teasers all day.

Reports today said Cristiano Ronaldo has spoken to some ex-United team-mates who swayed the decision to rejoin the Red Devils rather than signing for Manchester City.

Matt: Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo is an exceptionally good transfer window. Probably the best United have had in many years. It’s even better when you see they spent less than Arsenal in this window too.

Harry Clark: Bruno looked invisible at the euros along side Ronaldo. Can't help but wonder if that will be the case at Utd.

Eric Malavi: Whatever team you support, there is just some emotion in Cristiano returning to Man Utd that cuts across the football scene with vigour and might.

Manchester United playmaker Bruno Fernandes has posted a cartoon on Instagram with the caption "Never stop dreaming".

The two former Sporting Lisbon and Portugal players will be at Old Trafford together this season.

Cristiano Ronaldo has posted a message on Instagram as he departs Juventus for a return to Manchester United.

"Today I depart from an amazing club, the biggest in Italy and surely one of the biggest in all of Europe. I gave my heart and soul for Juventus and I’ll always love the city of Turin until my final days.

"The “tifosi bianconeri” always respected me and I tried to thank that respect by fighting for them in every game, every season, every competition. In the end, we can all look back and realise that we achieved great things, not all that we wanted, but still, we wrote a pretty beautiful story together.

"I will always be one of you. You are now part of my history, as I feel that I’m part of yours. Italy, Juve, Turin, tifosi bianconeri, you’ll always be in my heart."

Zak Maples: I'm on my honeymoon in Hawaii and just woke up to the news Ronaldo is coming home! Don't tell my wife but this might just trump the wedding!!

Jamal Moore: How did Arsenal manage to be the biggest spenders in this crazy transfer window?

Mick Clegg, Manchester United's power development coach from 2000 to 2011, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live:

"He's a very focused planner of what he wants to do. What he's been able to achieve while just looking at the best players when he was younger and making sure he was up to the job. Working with and them ultimately becoming a great player.

"Power, people think it's physical but power is in the brain. It's the ability to think, feel emotions and of course it's physical as well, but you have to be able to brings all these things together.

"You've got to be able to see, work things out, plan really well, make sure you the training you're doing is right for what you want and you have to put in the time and effort. People reduce power as speed x strength, but the power in the brain is way beyond that. Cristiano Ronaldo's brain is a very powerful brain because he looks at all angles and does everything necessary to be very successful."

Take a look at some of these numbers from Cristiano Ronaldo.

In all competitions, Ronaldo has scored 674 goals in 895 appearances at club level across spells at Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. His best single season for goals was in 2014-15 at Madrid, when he scored 61 goals in 54 games.

During his first spell at Manchester United, Ronaldo scored 42 goals in 49 appearances in all competitions during the 2007-08 campaign, the third-most ever by a Man Utd player in a single season in their entire history, behind only Denis Law and Ruud van Nistelrooy in 1963-64 and 2002-03 respectively.

Between his Premier League debut in August 2003 and his final appearance in May 2009, only Frank Lampard (131) and Thierry Henry (124) had a hand in more Premier League goals than Ronaldo (118), with only Henry scoring more goals (92) than Ronaldo’s tally of 84.

Not sure why I wrote that last update in the style of Line of Duty.

Former Manchester United left-back Patrice Evra has upload what looks like a WhatsApp conversation with CR7, whoever that may be.

In said exchange, 'CR7' says "I'm gonna play for our club".

Nathan Bright: This feels like the release of Toy Story 3. Loads of adults far too old to justifiably be that excited about it, and it almost definitely won’t be as good as the original… BUT, BUT, BUT THE MEMORIES!

Roger: I can hear the Portuguese arguments over free kicks already.

Michael Beirne: The English Premier League just took a turn. West Ham doing well, all pundits predicting it's between Man City and Chelsea to win league. Then, Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Man Utd...Game on!

I remember speaking to Juventus when they spent 90million to get Ronaldo from Real Madrid. They said that they'd worked out that it was more than a football deal, because it would ensure their status within the top 12 European clubs and it was the top 12 that generated the most money that people were interested in doing commercial deals with.

I'm not sure it's as linear as saying 'how many shirts you will sell' but clearly they will sell a huge number of shirts with Ronaldo on the back, I'd have thought it would be off the scale. So if there was a feeling that United have lost a bit of their mojo - they haven't won the league title don't forget since 2013 - are they still the club that everyone thought of them as being when Ronaldo was there first time around? There's no doubt that this transfer will catapult them again. It won't do any harm for Ronaldo as well, because he's associated with Manchester United which will allow him to maximise his marketing potential.

The key thing is that Man Utd and Ronaldo want to be competing for the biggest prizes and that's something that United haven't done since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 so they will hope that they have more luck with Ronaldo than Juventus did.

It's incredible because amid the euphoria of Ronaldo returning - and it is euphoric. This is a player that won three league titles in successive seasons with United, he scored 42 goals in the year that Manchester United won the Champions League - and he scored in the final - he is an icon at Manchester Untied.

Solskjaer said he is one of the greatest-ever players to have played and he is synonymous with United having spent six years with the club.

It's a euphoric moment for the club, but there are questions now. What happens to Cavani who has just signed a contract himself? What's his role now? What is Jadon Sancho's role now? He was supposed to be the person who was taking up that Ronaldo role so to speak, so there are question marks, but at the moment they're all getting lost in Ronaldo coming back to Manchester United.

It's an incredible deal, he's coming home.