Man United vs Atletico: Rangnick warns Ronaldo is ready to score another hat-trick
Rangnick will start the goal scoring legend convinced that the short gap between Saturday’s game and this last 16 second-leg tie will not hold him back
Manchester United manager Ralf Rangnick has called for more of the same from Cristiano Ronaldo to fire the Red Devils into the last eight of the Champions League.
Ronaldo ended a barren spell of one goal from ten games in spectacular fashion with a hat-trick in the Red Devils' 3-2 win over Spurs on Saturday, the 59th of his career.
Now just 72 hours on he is backing the 37-year-old veteran to rewind the clock again with another spectacular show at Old Trafford against Atletico Madrid.
Manager Rangnick said: “He showed against Tottenham what kind of a professional player he is, what kind of level he can still play at.
“With performances like that he showed, he's still a very important player for this team and he can make the difference for us.”
Rangnick will start the goal scoring legend convinced that the short gap between Saturday’s game and this last 16 second-leg tie will not hold him back.
He said: “I'm not worried that he has not been able to recover.
“So far he's always been a person that looks after himself a lot, he knows exactly what to do.
“I'm not worried about that. If he can score another three goals we'll see. His overall performance was good, very good, on Saturday and hopefully, we get this from him against Atletico.”
On Monday night, Ronaldo issued his own passionate rallying cry to his team on Instagram.
Ronaldo wrote: "Tomorrow is one of those days that we’ve all been waiting for.
"One of those chances to show the world the reason why Old Trafford is known as the Theatre of Dreams.
"Let’s recreate the amazing atmosphere that we saw in our last home game.
"Let’s keep our Champions League dream alive!
"We are Man Utd! Let’s do this together! Let’s go, Devils!"
United drew the first leg with Atletico in Spain 1-1 and are now aiming to reach the last eight of the competition for only the second time in eight years.
And they look set to have the help of Bruno Fernandes and Luke Shaw who both missed Saturday's win over Spurs after contracting Covid.
The pair were believed to be doubts for the game but were able to join team-mates in Monday's session as Carrington.
Fernandes set up Anthony Elanga for United's equaliser in the first leg at the Wanda Metropolitano.
