Manchester United has Cristiano Ronaldo back and the rest of the world should sit up and take notice. The world’s best soccer player has missed the start of the Soccer Betting Premier League season but he returned in Champions League action against Villarreal on Wednesday.

It was expected that Ronaldo was going to be out until October but he has recovered nicely from ankle surgery and is a welcome sight for Manchester United. The defending champs of the Premier League are without Michael Carrick for weeks and new addition Dimitar Berbatov is doubtful this weekend. Ronaldo’s return definitely spices up this weekend’s game against Chelsea. “Cristiano is a massive player for us and it’s great to have him on our side,” said United’s Carlos Tevez. “It’s like having an extra player when he’s there because he’s such a danger to our opponents. It will be a big boost to have him back.” United is trying to secure Tevez to a long-term deal and getting Ronaldo back healthy might help that cause. Tevez has shown every indication that he wants to stay with United. “From the first moment I came here, I would have loved to sign a long-term contract,” he said. “Last year was a very happy season and it would be wonderful if the chairman put a long-term contract in front of me. Tevez expects that Manchester United will bounce back from last week’s loss to Liverpool. “Whenever we lost a game last season, we came back and showed ourselves to be stronger,” said Tevez, “That was the reason we won two titles last year. I’m sure we’ll see a reaction from the players tonight.”

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Manchester United played to a scoreless draw with Villarreal in their Group E opening Champions League match at Old Trafford. It was a disappointing result considering Ronaldo was back in the lineup. Premier League rival Chelsea has no trouble in their opening group match against Bordeaux as they won 4-0 as Frank Lampard scored a goal and set up two more. “We have started very good - three points,” Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari said, “..We didn’t play very well, but we were three or four times in front of goal and we made goals. That’s OK. We could be punished by other teams who get in front of goal faster than Bordeaux and with quality. That’s dangerous for us.”

Liverpool was another Premier League team to get a win in group play as they defeated Marseille 2-1 while Arsenal played to a 1-1 draw with Dynamo Kiev.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 6:01 am and is filed under Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United, UEFA Champions League, Villareal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.