I will never forget coming back from a game against Charlton some time after Cristiano Ronaldo had signed for Manchester United and thinking to myself: 'Do you know what? I just give up with him.'
He had been flailing around on the ground, he was never in his position and he was unreliable.
As someone who had played with David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, world-class players who worked up and down and did the ugly part of the game, playing with Cristiano Ronaldo was a constant frustration.
Enigmatic and brilliant: Cristiano Ronaldo showed a new way of playing He would go wandering off to the left, to the right, up the middle; he was inconsistent; and he would cost us. I remember him giving the ball away at Chelsea in the Mourinho years and Chelsea scoring. He would win us a match but then we wouldn't see him for the next game. I remember snapping at him and going crazy once when he tried to over-complicate in front of goal, with some back-heel flick rather than a sidefoot to finish.
'What the hell are you playing at?' I said. 'That's not what we do here.'
My patience was wearing thin, as was the other players'. It wasn't that we wanted him out of the team or the club. It was just: 'When will he learn? When he's going to pick up the English game?'
But the experience of Sir Alex Ferguson meant he never lost patience.
He always went with him. And then I remember when he came back from the 2006 World Cup after all that controversy with the Wayne Rooney red card.
He walked into the dressing room and I thought: 'Jeez, what has happened to him over the summer?'
When he had come to the club he was this thin, wiry boy. Now he was a light-heavyweight. He'd been on the weights over the summer and it was like watching someone grow up in a matter of weeks.
And what ensued for the next two years was astonishing. I can't believe anyone has ever seen anything as extraordinary in the Premier League.
I know we have had Thierry Henry, Eric Cantona and Gianfranco Zola - and perhaps Henry in his prime came closest - but for two years this was a player on another planet, the best in the world. He would prey on the weak. He is an absolute bully, as Maicon found out for Manchester City in the Bernabeu this season.
He had been flailing around on the ground, he was never in his position and he was unreliable.
As someone who had played with David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, world-class players who worked up and down and did the ugly part of the game, playing with Cristiano Ronaldo was a constant frustration.
Enigmatic and brilliant: Cristiano Ronaldo showed a new way of playing He would go wandering off to the left, to the right, up the middle; he was inconsistent; and he would cost us. I remember him giving the ball away at Chelsea in the Mourinho years and Chelsea scoring. He would win us a match but then we wouldn't see him for the next game. I remember snapping at him and going crazy once when he tried to over-complicate in front of goal, with some back-heel flick rather than a sidefoot to finish.
'What the hell are you playing at?' I said. 'That's not what we do here.'
My patience was wearing thin, as was the other players'. It wasn't that we wanted him out of the team or the club. It was just: 'When will he learn? When he's going to pick up the English game?'
But the experience of Sir Alex Ferguson meant he never lost patience.
He always went with him. And then I remember when he came back from the 2006 World Cup after all that controversy with the Wayne Rooney red card.
He walked into the dressing room and I thought: 'Jeez, what has happened to him over the summer?'
When he had come to the club he was this thin, wiry boy. Now he was a light-heavyweight. He'd been on the weights over the summer and it was like watching someone grow up in a matter of weeks.
And what ensued for the next two years was astonishing. I can't believe anyone has ever seen anything as extraordinary in the Premier League.
I know we have had Thierry Henry, Eric Cantona and Gianfranco Zola - and perhaps Henry in his prime came closest - but for two years this was a player on another planet, the best in the world. He would prey on the weak. He is an absolute bully, as Maicon found out for Manchester City in the Bernabeu this season.
