Former Liverpool Star Says Cristiano Ronaldo's Late Winner Was Offside

Cristiano Ronaldo's 95th minute winner in the Champions League against Villarreal has caused controversy and now one former Liverpool player has had his say.

Ronaldo had to dig his side out of a tricky situation on Wednesday, when he scored a last minute winner to make sure they didn't fail to win in their opening two group games.

The Portugal forward hadn't done too much at Old Trafford but was in the right place to head towards goal from Fred's cross deep in injury time, before Jesse Lingard passed back towards his teammate, who struck home.

Lingard's intervention led to him being brought to the ground in front of the goalkeeper, as Ronaldo shot, leaving him potentially in an offside position.

Much to the annoyance of rival fans the goal was given, despite VAR checking, and ex Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina has had his saying, taking to Twitter to say it was 'offside all day long.'

Reina played for United's rivals from 2005 until 2014, spending a year on loan at Napoli before eventually leaving for the Italian side on a permanent deal.

The World Cup winner played nearly 400 times for the Anfield club and won the FA Cup and League Cup with them, as well as reaching the Champions League final.

He is now playing for Lazio in Serie A but he did previously play for Villarreal for three seasons, after leaving Barcelona where the keeper was an academy graduate, which is obviously why he felt so gutted for the Spanish side.

United were desperately in need of the goal, no matter how legitimate it was, having lost to Young Boys two week previously, when Lingard's last minute back pass went wrong.

Paco Alcacer put the visitors ahead on Wednesday, putting Solskjaer's side in the precarious position where they could lose their opening two Champions League games and in risk of getting knocked out.

Alex Telles equalised with a brilliant finish from Bruno Fernandes' free kick, before Ronaldo ended the club's poor run of results in the previous.

Last weekend they lost to Aston Villa, with Solskjaer claiming the goal should have been ruled out for offside, in not too dissimilar circumstances to Ronaldo's winner.

Weirdly, Reina didn't tweet about that.

Featured Image Credit: BT Sport

Topics: Champions League, Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo, Villarreal, Premier League, Liverpool

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a journalist for SPORTbible with over eight years of experience. Passionate about all sports, he mainly covers football and F1 - Daniel Ricciardo once spent an entire interview referring to him as 'Ryan Gosling,' still his proudest moment.

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