A video clip has been doing the rounds of perhaps the first match in history to feature three nutmegs on different players in the space of six seconds. The footage is brutal and what a measure of Louis van Gaal’s introduction to English football that it is the Manchester United players with their legs wide open and the ones from Leicester City showboating. Daley Blind is the first to suffer, courtesy of Matty James. Chris Smalling is the next one to be fooled, by Leonardo Ulloa’s back-heel, and then the ball is in the penalty area with Ander Herrera running over to cover. Danny Drinkwater threads it through his legs and, briefly, it feels like Leicester have become football’s equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters and Nigel Pearson might start moonwalking down the touchline.  It is no wonder if there are United supporters pining for better times and, by now, you might have seen the banner that was flown over El Madrigal, home of Villarreal, during Real Madrid’s 2-0 win, with the specific intention to fluff up Cristiano Ronaldo’s already considerable ego. “Come home Ronaldo” was the message, and even if most of us have probably grown weary of these plane stunts it is easy to imagine the subject of this one, with his permanent love of attention, lapping it up.  Can it happen? Well, first things first, there are plainly other issues at Old Trafford that need to be prioritised and the sense of order might look distinctly less jumbled if it were, say, Gerard Piqué being talked up for a return. Or Paul Pogba, perhaps, two years after his free transfer to Juventus. United were quoted £65m when they went back for Pogba this year and, flicking through Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography to try to find an explanation, maybe it is awkwardness on his part that the episode does not warrant a single sentence. As Alessio Tacchinardi recently said in Corriere dello Sport: “Whoever signs Pogba has their midfield sorted for a decade or more.”  Yet the obsession at Old Trafford is with Ronaldo and it is no surprise for this newspaper that the issue has resurfaced. We have been writing about it since August 2013, having had a thorough explanation from one of the relevant deal-makers about the potential timescale, how the expectation was that Ronaldo would agree a new contract at the Bernabéu (he signed for five years the following month) but, beyond that, how he ultimately liked the idea of returning to England. United have been receiving positive vibes, on and off, for the best part of 18 months and if the money and desire is there and they really think there is a way to wade through all the politics then they ought to go for him. And more fool Florentino Pérez, Madrid’s president, if he really is willing to entertain the idea.  It would be complicated, plainly, and not just because of the mind-boggling amounts of money that are involved when even a club of Manchester City’s wealth, first contacted by Ronaldo’s camp 18 months ago, quickly ended the conversation upon hearing the salary requirements, in the region of £385,000 per week.  Wanting it to happen and making it happen are two very different things and there is certainly an irony to the rumours about Ronaldo’s alleged dissatisfaction in Spain if we recall his final season at Old Trafford – the early part of which the crowd, resentful of his pining for Madrid, refused to sing his name – and that long period when he gave the impression that life in Manchester felt like a five-star Alcatraz.  Ronaldo can seem fonder of the old place now than when he was there and the player we see at Madrid, blitzing opponents, flexing those mahogany pecs and currently winning his mano a mano contest with Lionel Messi, does not widely give the impression he is running low on job satisfaction or, to quote the former president Ramón Calderón, “fed up”.  Also bear in mind that everything we know about Ronaldo suggests he will be obsessed with overhauling Raúl as Madrid’s record scorer. Raúl has 323 goals, followed by Alfredo di Stéfano on 305 and Carlos Santillana on 289, with Ronaldo another 24 behind. Nobody has been more prolific on a match‑by‑match basis (Raúl accumulated his total over 16 years and 741 games, whereas Ronaldo’s have come since 2009, at a staggering 1.04 per match) but he will want the record outright and, realistically, the chase will go beyond the present season. That, as much as anything, will surely count against United next summer, when he will already have turned 30.  All the same, they cannot be blamed for feeling tempted. Just consider Ronaldo’s figures again: 265 goals for Madrid in 255 games, 185 from his right foot, 49 from the left and 31 off his head. There have been 25 hat-tricks, 44 goals from outside the penalty area, eight direct from free-kicks, 47 penalties and 65 assists. “Even if he was having a dire game, he would always create three chances,” Ferguson used to say. Ronaldo scoring now feels like such a formality it is actually a jolt when he is kept out. “And Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t score today!” to adapt the old BBC Sports Report headline about a 16-year-old Trevor Francis, after 15 goals from his first 15 games for Birmingham City.  Nostalgia can smooth the rough edges of history sometimes and Ronaldo had become an unsettled, almost resentful figure by the time he left Manchester. Yet times change. The good memories far outweigh the bad ones and what is absolutely clear is that his old club still take a great deal of pride in his achievements.  Ronaldo used to have a trick at Carrington whereby he would pretend to kick the ball into a team-mate’s face but drag it under his foot while the other player ducked for cover. He would disco-dance while juggling with the ball and, over time, there is no doubt that some of his colleagues tired of the performing seal act. Gary Neville finished one game convinced it was a hopeless cause. Ruud van Nistelrooy became so sick of the younger player’s reluctance to cross the ball, when the alternative was to try another trick, he flipped one day in training and had to be pulled off him.  Ronaldo had to be taught that football with no end product is futile. But what a dedicated learner. He employed a chef to make sure he ate the right food. He had a swimming pool so he could do special exercises underwater. In training, he tied weights to his ankles to help build his strength. His ego has grown with his pecs – “I love being Cristiano Ronaldo” is one hell of an opening line from The Obsession for Perfection, Luca Caioli’s 2012 biography – and the self-adoration brings to mind Happy Days and Fonzie’s thumbs-up, usually after another girl had slipped him her number. Yet the other thing you will notice is that none of his former team‑mates ever have a bad word to say about him.  Rio Ferdinand’s latest book is out next week and contains one passage about a Champions League game at Benfica. Ronaldo, back in Lisbon, had been under pressure to play well but it got to him and afterwards Ferguson flew into a temper. Ronaldo ended up in tears. “Berba [Dimitar Berbatov] couldn’t take that sort of treatment,” Ferdinand recalls. “If you hammered him, Berba would go into his shell and wouldn’t play at all. Ronaldo, on the other hand, used something like that to motivate himself: ‘Right, I’ll fucking show you.’”  The following season, United went back to Estádio da Luz and Ronaldo set up the winner. He won a clean sweep of the player of the year awards that season and his first Ballon d’Or arrived the following year.  Suddenly, it becomes a little clearer – after reading Up There, Michael Walker’s book about the boom and bust (and bonkers and barminess) of north-east football – exactly what it is that Mike Ashley gets out of owning Newcastle United.  Walker was at St James’ Park on the final day of last season when around 2,000 fans staged a 69th-minute walkout to remind everyone that 1969 was the last year Newcastle won a major trophy. The emptied stadium revealed something: Ashley was everywhere. From one side of the pitch, it was possible to make out 137 different signs for his Sports Direct empire. There were 31 in the dugouts for prime exposure from the television cameras. There were perimeter hoardings, smaller advertising boards and two giant red signs on the East Stand. The 137 did not include the logos on the inside walls of the tunnel or the one on the sign that is the last thing the players read as they go through it. At Liverpool there is “This is Anfield”. Newcastle have “Howay the Lads” complete with a motif for a sports shop specialising in cheap tracksuits.  It is all part of the football business, I suppose, and if you want to follow the sport in England’s top division then you are probably obliged to live with this kind of eyesore. It does, however, add to the theory that Newcastle have their priorities mixed up.  On 21 October 2007, Ashley gave a rare interview to the News of the World where he explained why he had bought the club: “I want to have fun and win some trophies.” Seven years on, it hasn’t quite panned out like that and his lawyers are now in overdrive to try to repair the damage from him telling a journalist outside a London pub – a joke, apparently – that Pardew was “gone … dead … finished … over” if the Premier League’s bottom club lost at Stoke City on Monday.  Yet Sports Direct is flourishing and Ibrox could be next given that Ashley bought the naming rights from Rangers for £1 two years ago. Don’t bet against it. Ashley gives the impression that if he could get away with it there would be a Sports Direct logo on the statues for Sir Bobby Robson and Jackie Milburn.  Not for the first time, there is something exceedingly strange about the events at Leeds United and another name has been added to the growing list of managers, coaches, technical consultants and senior staff who have been hired and fired under the Massimo Cellino regime.  Graham Bean, the club’s chief administrator, clearly didn’t realise the way Cellino worked when Reading made the standard request – and this was in July – to move Tuesday’s game back 24 hours because Sky had switched them to Sunday.  Bean signed it off, in keeping with Rule 26.4 of the Football League that stipulates that as long as there is 28 days’ notice the fixture should “automatically be rescheduled”. Yet Cellino was apparently “apoplectic” and “foaming at the mouth” when he found out, insisting with wonderful sporting etiquette that Leeds should have applied their own rules and shown no mercy.  Bean is now an ex-employee and has spent the past few days raging about “the madhouse” on Twitter. Cellino said: “I have to run this club my way. I don’t like to talk about private matters. Ciao.”  Cellino is waiting to hear whether the League will try again to throw him out under the old fit-and-proper-person rules. In the meantime it would be nice to think he could understand that everything he does reflects on his club.
Daniel Taylor: Cristiano Ronaldo is apparently warm to the idea of returning to Manchester United, and they certainly could use him, but there are many obstacles in the way