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LONDON. — Cristiano Ronaldo threw another strop as he failed to score for a fifth game in a row — his longest goal drought in more than a decade.
The Manchester United superstar — who also had a tantrum against Brentford last month — stormed down the tunnel at full-time as his side were held to a 1-1 draw by Burnley in a English Premiership football match on Tuesday night.
He threw down some white strapping from his wrists as his team-mates stayed behind to applaud the travelling fans.
The Portugal international is now on a run of five matches without a goal — a dry spell that dates back to United’s 3-1 victory over the Clarets on December 30.
He started on the bench at Turf Moor before being introduced with 20 minutes to go.
And he was left goalless and fuming as the final whistle blew on yet another disappointing Red Devils display.
Ralf Rangnick picked Edinson Cavani instead but his side lost ground in the Champions League race just days after the interim boss had slammed United for wasting their chances during last Friday night’s FA Cup defeat to Middlesbrough.
Rangnick found fault with his team before the introduction of Ronaldo — by which time a draw seemed almost inevitable.
He told BT Sport: “It was 1-0 at half time, we knew they would come out in the second half in a more aggressive way and the only thing I can complain the team about was we were not aggressive enough in the first 20 minutes of the second half.
“If you look into the whole game we dominated for most of it. Winning one point is not enough and another frustrating again.”Ronaldo has now drawn blanks against Wolves, Brentford, West Ham, Middlesbrough and Burnley twice.
He shocked fans by missing the target from the penalty spot during last Friday’s FA Cup defeat by Boro.
And CR7 is now on his worst club goalscoring run since 2010.
Back then he failed to score in the final pair of games of the 2009-10 season for Real Madrid — before drawing blanks in their first three matches of 2010-11.
Ronaldo has only scored in six of his 18 English Premiership appearances for United this season, although he bagged doubles against Newcastle and Arsenal.
He has had more success in the Champions League, grabbing six goals in five group stage games.
When international football is included, Ronaldo went five games without a goal as recently as 2018.
He didn’t register in Portugal’s final two clashes of that year’s World Cup in Russia, or in his first three games for Juventus. On Tuesday, Ronaldo started the night taking refuge from the rain on the Manchester United substitutes’ bench at Turf Moor, and ended it by storming down the tunnel again, soaked to the skin. Ronaldo doesn’t do things by halves: saviour or sulker. On Tuesday night we witnessed the latter once more after Rangnick dropped Ronaldo to the bench, three days after his 37th birthday, in favour of the more combative Cavani.
A wet Tuesday night at Burnley wasn’t the right time or place to start the five-time Ballon d’Or winner according to Rangnick. It was a bold decision by United’s interim boss considering the last time he took Ronaldo out of the action, at Brentford last month, the Portugal star had a major strop.
“It’s a big call,’’ said Peter Crouch on BT Sport. “I’m not sure how well Cristiano is going to take that.’’
Not very well, it turned out. Ronaldo replaced Cavani in the 66th minute but made little impression.
A fifth blank in a row, following his missed penalty in Friday’s FA Cup defeat to Middlesbrough, equalled the worst dry spell of his club career 12 years ago with Real Madrid.
At the end, he was first off down the tunnel to howls of derision from the Burnley fans in the Jimmy McIlroy Stand as he tore a strapping off his wrist and flung it to the ground in anger.
Ronaldo’s frustration was shared by Rangnick after he saw a re-run of the Boro game. United dominated the first half and took the lead but couldn’t kill off their opponents as they had two more goals disallowed.
“We scored three goals!’’ said Rangnick. “The second one that was disallowed, the linesman flagged foul but 10 seconds after that incident. This was a very soft decision, I must say.
“In the second half we were not aggressive enough. It was clear they would come out and be aggressive. The way we allowed them to score, we didn’t defend the whole situation.
“It’s a frustrating night for us because we should have won that game comfortably.
“In the end it was also a little question of luck. One point for a performance like this is just not enough.’’
Sean Dyche preferred to focus on referee Mike Dean’s decision to only book United captain Harry Maguire when he hauled down Jay Rodriguez in the second half.
“Well if you want to talk about them (disallowed goals), on another day Maguire would have gone off for that,’’ said Dyche. ‘’Sometimes you get these calls and sometimes you don’t.’’
Burnley remain bottom of the table and Dyche added: ‘’It’s onwards and upwards. It’s the only way we can go — or not of course.’’ — The Sun
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