Cristiano Ronaldo: Man United is the club of my heart, I loved it there… I’d like to go back one day

At a time when Manchester United can’t get away from ridicule, there’s a familiar face who just wants to show them some love. Maybe the man with the backwards cap and cut-off denim shorts is being polite as he mentions a possibility that currently seems inconceivable.

‘I love Manchester,’ he says.

‘Everyone knows that — I have said it many times. Manchester is in my heart. I left many good friends there, the supporters are amazing and I wish I can come back one day.’

It is Cristiano Ronaldo and he’s warming to one of his favourite subjects.

‘I am happy here in Real Madrid and have four more years, but in the future you never know because they treated me unbelievably well there.’

He has kicked balls at a £200,000 supercar driven by Jenson Button, fired one accurately at a friend’s groin and also grimaced in response to a dignitary’s praise for Jose Mourinho. But now it’s time to leave the arid surrounds of the Jarama race circuit outside Madrid. It’s scorching, inside and out.

Good friends: (L-R) Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs and Ronaldo celebrate winning the 2009-09 Premier League

But Ronaldo has one more thing he wants to say to Sportsmail. ‘I really did love being at Manchester United,’ he says. ‘Believe me, they will be a good team again, I’m sure of it. It is a great club.’ Over the previous 20 minutes, having already talked about his tears, trophies and dream to see his four-year-old son go into professional football, he has had his say on the remarkable summer of spending at Old Trafford.

It’s the club Sir Alex Ferguson —the only manager Ronaldo ‘would call a friend’ — once said would not spend fortunes on established talent; a club that once nurtured Ronaldo and has since spent £150million in a single summer spree on the proven capabilities of Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao, among others.

Ronaldo’s own irritation at Di Maria’s departure from Real will soon be made clear, but their loss, in his eyes, is United’s gain. As is the counter-intuitive addition of Falcao to an already attack-heavy squad, whose fall from grace has been watched closely by arguably their greatest player. Ronaldo is known to follow them diligently on television and online.

‘This can happen,’ he says. ‘Bad moments and good moments. Manchester is passing through a bad moment. Last year it was a horrible season and this year they haven’t started well, either.

‘But I do think they did well to buy Di Maria and Falcao. I think the team will be much better. I want to see them better because it is such a fantastic club and they deserve to be better.

‘Falcao is a very good signing. He is a very good player.’

And yet conventional logic suggests United need to add more cement to the mix, with a defence and structure less convincing than at any time in recent memory. Priority, or so the common wisdom goes, should have been given to a different part of the pitch. But Ronaldo says: ‘I don’t think Falcao is the wrong type of player for them.

‘He is a top player, so I don’t think it is a wrong buy. He will be a fantastic buy. Manchester have not started well, two points in three games, so they need quality players and Falcao is a quality player. And Di Maria, too.’

Di Maria is also something of a sore point, as was the loss of Xabi Alonso to Bayern Munich. For a second summer in succession, having offloaded Mesut Ozil to Arsenal last year, Ronaldo objected to Real’s sale of what he considers key personnel.

‘I have strong opinions, but I can’t always say what I think,’ he later told Spanish reporters. ‘If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have done so. But if the president thinks the best thing for the team is to sign players and let others leave, we must respect and support the decision.

‘With new players, the style will change and it may change for better or worse.’

For Ronaldo, at 29 years old and having scored a scarcely believable 255 goals in 250 Real Madrid games, ‘better’ is the only option. Having just enjoyed arguably his finest season, in which he was awarded the Ballon D’Or and won the Champions League for a second time, last month he was named Europe’s best player.