Winger vows to stay loyal to current employer for slightly longer

Just about everybody in the world knows that Cristiano Ronaldo has augmented his summer of tanning and love by peppering the back pages with gauche comments about his desire to move to Real Madrid. This morning, however, the Nutella-brown star did his best to put out the fires he has started, with a media savvy apology for his actions and a vow to stay in Manchester for another year:

“I want to say that I was the one who was most responsible for this whole controversy.”It wasn’t their fault because I was the one who showed in public my will to move to Real Madrid.

“I also ended up, even though it wasn’t my intention, the one responsible for all the problems between the two clubs.”

He continued:

“I’ll play for Manchester United with my heart and soul. I will fight and honour that shirt with all the commitment and dedication I’ve always had.”

Some might say he has been forced to make these comments with his tail between his Hooters’ girl legs, yet his self-serving comments throughout the transfer saga seem to have been orchestrated to show his overt desire to move to Spain. As soon as he saw that the transfer was a no-go, he switched to Plan B, delivering his carefully-crafted apology and promise to be at his best for the team he would rather not be playing for in 2008/09. Frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised if he (or his people) had written this ‘admission of fault’ months ago.

Manchester Utd fans, are you feeling a healthy mix of relief, anger and confusion? Let us know with a comment below.

Spoiler Bonus: we called this outcome weeks ago