PAUL SCHOLES reckons Cristiano Ronaldo refused to go on against Tottenham as he feared Erik ten Hag was “taking the mick” out of him.
And Manchester United legend Scholes should know – as a “low point” of his own career was refusing to get off the bench for Alex Ferguson.
Scholes revealed he still feels ashamed of his behaviour – in a League Cup clash against Arsenal in 2001.
Ronaldo, though, bounced back with a scoring return in United’s 3-0 Europa League win over Sheriff Tiraspol on Thursday night.
And Scholes is sympathetic to the Old Trafford superstar’s tantrum a week earlier in a 2-0 Prem victory against Spurs.
The ex-England midfielder told BT Sport: ‘It gets in your head, you get to an hour and still not on, your head goes and I think the same thing has happened to Cristiano where he’s thinking he’s been left out.
“A biggish game, the year before he scored a hat-trick against Spurs, saw the team miss a lot of chances and he would be thinking he could score goals against this team easily.
“The longer the game goes on the more you get upset, the red mist comes. You’re not thinking straight.
“To ask him to come on with two or three minutes, Cristiano would be thinking “is he taking the mickey out of me?”
Scholes’s own sub snub 21 years ago came 24 hours after he was only brought on in the final minutes against Liverpool.
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He said: “it was a low point in my career. I look back and regret, it was so wrong to do.
“I sympathise with Cristiano. He did the wrong thing but my situation we was playing Liverpool on the Sunday and then playing Arsenal in the cup on the Monday which was unheard of.
“I was left out of the Liverpool (starting line-up) game and I was upset about it.
“Usually when I got left out I could understand but for some reason that day I was so upset. I wanted to be part of it.”
