Despite his advancing years, Cristiano Ronaldo is still a world-class footballer.

I’m not even going to begin to dispute that, because doing so would make me look stupid, and God knows, I don’t need additional help with that. But Manchester United fans should not be even remotely despondent about the news that CR7 is heading for the exit. Why? Because United and their new manager need the freshest of fresh starts.

Ever since Sir Alex Ferguson hung up his hairdryer, the club has stumbled from one failed management experiment to another, many of which have involved managers of the highest calibre. One of the reasons for some, if not all, of those failures is that the collective power of the Old Trafford dressing room has frequently outweighed the individual power of the manager.

I’m not suggesting Ronaldo would be a bad influence or rock the boat without justification. But a player with his experience and status is never going to be short of an opinion or two. Possibly even three.

At this stage, Erik ten Hag doesn’t need that sort of interference. He doesn’t need someone in the dressing room who is going to – maybe unintentionally – undermine his authority. The job he is facing is already tricky enough without that added complication.

Erik ten Hag doesn’t need someone in the dressing room who is going to undermine his authority

Of course, there is always the possibility Ronaldo will opt to stay and that these rumblings coming from his camp are just meant to spur the team on to make some new signings. But the truth is more likely that Ronaldo is looking to get away for real. Despite his enviable fitness levels and his apparent refusal to age, he probably only has a year or two left at the top. And he doesn’t want to spend one of those playing in the Europa League.

So yes, the Ronaldo/United love affair is probably about to come to an end. But it’s probably for the best for both parties.

The subtle art of scoring

There’s nothing big or clever about match fixing. It’s an evil practice that has no place in football or any other sport for that matter. But (and this is a huge but) if you are going to do it, the very least you can do is try and be a little bit subtle.

What took place in Sierra Leone last week was about as subtle as opening a packet of crisps with a sledgehammer. Two clubs in the country’s second division – Kahunla Rangers and Gulf FC – were playing in the Premier League qualifiers, trying to grab the last remaining place in a competition which leads to promotion to the top-flight.

In their final games, Kahunla were playing Lumbedu United while Gulf FC were taking on Koquima Lebanon. At half-time in those matches, Kahunla were 2-0 up and Gulf FC were 7-1 up. Although the seven goals were a bit on the high side, there was still nothing at that stage to set off too many alarm bells.

The thing is, both clubs had gone into this last round of matches level on points. And those half-time scores showed the final promotion place was going to come down to goal difference. This obviously meant both Kahunla and Gulf would need to step things up in the second half. Which they did. However, some may consider the extent of their ‘stepping up’ as slightly fishy. Kahunla ended up winning their game 95-0 while Gulf FC were slightly less emphatic in their 91-1 victory.

Yes, you read that right.

In 45 second-half minutes, Gulf managed to score 84 goals (a goal every 32.14 seconds) while Kahunla went even better scoring 93 goals at a rate of one every 29.03 seconds. I can’t even begin to comprehend how that is even logistically possible.

I mean, even assuming the losing team is part of the scam, they would need to pass the winning team the ball from kick-off who would then have to score from the half-way line. Then everyone would need to run around to get back in position again for the next kick-off. And repeat the whole thing 93 times.

Obviously, the authorities have launched an investigation into all four teams involved in these games, officials and players are being questioned and the results won’t stand. But it does make you wonder how the protagonists could have, in their wildest dreams, ever believed they might even possibly get away with it.

Raheem on the move

I read last week that one of the reasons Raheem Sterling is moving to Chelsea is to try and fulfil his ambitions of winning the Ballon D’Or.

Hmmm.

Maybe I am wrong here, but winning that particular trophy is not so much about who you play for but how you play.

Sterling’s problem has always been consistency. During his years with Manchester City he would often put in world-class performances. The problem is that, interspersed between those games were others in which he performed like someone who had just seen his first football.

Admittedly the number of good performances massively outweighed the ineffectual ones, but it was that lack of consistency that ruled him out of Ballon D’Or contention; not the fact that he played for Manchester City rather than Chelsea.

Of course, if he feels making the move to London is going to improve his levels of consistency, then fair enough, that might help with his ambitions. However, I don’t believe anyone truly deserving of the Ballon D’Or ever missed out because they happened to be playing for the ‘wrong’ English team.

The fact that they weren’t playing for a Spanish team, however, well that’s a whole different argument…

E-mail: james@quizando.com

Twitter: @maltablade