Jose Mourinho Rules out Cristiano Ronaldo Move, Targets Midfielder in the Summer

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has ruled out the possibility of signing Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer and revealed the club's priority in the transfer market would be to recruit a central midfielder.

According to Ciaran Kelly of the Manchester Evening News, he said of the Red Devils' situation up front:

"I think in attack it's very difficult for us to improve. Where are we going to get a better combination of players than we have?

"We cannot buy [Lionel] Messi, we cannot buy Cristiano. These are the best players of the last decade. Where can we get better players than [Juan] Mata, [Anthony] Martial, [Jesse] Lingard, [Marcus] Rashford, [Alexis] Sanchez, [Romelu] Lukaku? So, in attack, we have an amazing group of players."

There's no obvious place for Ronaldo in the lineup, and while he may be among the best in the world, he will be 33 on Monday, and as such it would be difficult to justify shoehorning him in at the expense of one of the others.

That's particularly true given the costs likely to be involved, as football writer Julien Laurens noted on BBC 5 live Sport:

On United's midfield, Mourinho added:

"In midfield Michael Carrick will not be the No. 16. Who will have Michael Carrick in his shirt next season, so we lose a player. It's there in midfield where we need to improve but to get a player to compensate the situation of Michael."

Carrick has only been able to make two appearances this season because of a heart condition, and he will turn 37 in the summer.

Aside from him, United's central-midfield options are limited to Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba, Ander Herrera—whose form has dropped off considerably since last season—youngster Scott McTominay and Marouane Fellaini, who might also leave if his contract is allowed to expire at the end of the campaign.

Football writer Liam Canning believes the Red Devils are right to prioritise another player in that position:

United may not need to focus on signing a goalscoring midfielder necessarily if Mourinho can get his forward players firing on all cylinders in the second half of the campaign, but another man who can make things happen and create would ease their reliance on Pogba in that regard.

Until then, they need the France international to stay fit.