re: CR7 to meet with Manchester United

If Bale was on the right, di Maria could easily play on the left. I'm not incredibly familiar with Ancelotti, but di Maria on the right was a Mourinho decision, IIRC

There were a few people who played out there under Mourinho (Callejon, Morata, probably both Coentrao and Marcelo--at least one of them has, etc.), but no amazing long-term solutions, and Mourinho is not a fan of true width.

There's also the possibility that Ancelotti could draw more heavily from their reserve and youth teams. Mourinho had some issues with their setup (and vice versa), so those options were underutilized.

I would imagine that it'd be di Maria or buy, but that's a relatively uninformed opinion.

quote:

---

If I were Mesut Özil, I´d be happy (with the departure of Cristianito). His game is going to exponentially grow in protagonism

---

While I like Mourinho, I think that that one is mostly on him.

I think that he felt like he had to sacrifice one of Ronaldo or Oezil to fit the players available into his system.

Oezil and Ronaldo compliment each other really well, and Ronaldo isn't really looking for a team to play through him. He just isn't going to devote a significant amount of his time towards defending, outside of set pieces. Ancelotti could, and should, give the keys to the car to Oezil while including Ronaldo. Ronaldo's game under Mourinho didn't preclude Oezil. Though, Mourinho might have.