Roker Ramble: Good footballers get angry this week, as the business end of the season arrives!

Ronaldo smashes a child’s phone

Has anyone noticed that Manchester United since Alex Ferguson retired are simply Sunderland, but with more cash?

Relatively speaking their fall from Premier League champions to irrelevant, overhyped nobodies has been comparable to our decline. Arguably, they ballsed it up just as much. It’s just they didn’t have Simon Grayson in charge. But they did have David Moyes. Coincidence? I think not.

Sadly for Cristiano Ronaldo, he’s had enough of watching Paul Pogba doing a very passable impression of a lounge lizard for pretty much the entire campaign. Last weekend it reached a crescendo as poor old CR7 reacted badly to a child...well, I don’t know actually because I haven’t seen it at the end of their defeat to Premier League whipping boys Everton. Anyhow one thing led to another and the little Evertonian’s phone ended up goosed.

Ronaldo apologised and said that he would invite the boy along to a Manchester United game as a sign of “fair play and sportsmanship.” Cristiano... as if he hasn’t suffered enough. Also, a suggestion for you, it’s more in the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship if you just don’t do it in the first place.

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Apparently, the boy’s mother has said she’s refused to meet with Ronaldo following the incident. Clearly, the prospects of seeing them labour to a 1-0 win over Norwich holds precisely zero attraction.

All of this is sort of ironic really, considering United have been phoning in it pretty much all season.

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Kenny Shiels blames women for being more emotional than men

Are you a man? Managing a women’s football team? On an international stage? Are you a gaffe-prone pillock? If you’ve answered yes to all these questions, you must be Northern Ireland’s Kenny Shiels.

The Northern Ireland manager placed - to put it mildly - a bit of a downer on a night that saw a record crowd in Belfast for a women’s match, by criticising his players for conceding twice in quick succession. The reason... aha... well, it’s apparently because women are more emotional than men.

Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Has Shiels never experienced a couple of goals in quick succession before? It begs the question, in what sort of emotional state were the Arsenal players when Robbie Fowler bagged a four-minute 33-second hattrick against them all those years ago?

Criticising players for footballing reasons is one thing. Criticising them because of their gender is another.

It must have occurred to him that playing a team that had a goal difference of +63 before the match would bring with it the risk of conceding a large amount of goals, possibly, possibly in quick succession.

Plus, what did he actually think would be the positive resolution after saying something like that?

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Atleti lose their heads

“Oh no one likes to see this sort of thing,” said Darren Fletcher, sucking the words through his teeth as if he could barely believe what he was a witness to.

What BT Sport’s commentator was referring to of course was the unsavoury scenes after Atleti’s Felipe chopped down Phil Foden like he was a giant sequoia in Yosemite national park.

I’ll correct you there Darren, because the reaction to the tackle from both sides is EXACTLY the sort of thing I want to see. Shithousery in all its glory. Bravo Manchester City, bravo.

It was like watching an on-pitch version of the Newcastle fans who - nine years this week - went on the rampage in their own city, after getting tonked by the mighty Black Cats; seeing that chap having an imbroglio with a horse is something that will always have a fond place in my heart.

I would in particular like to doff my cap to Jack Grealish who, on seeing Stefan Savic steam into the action for, well, no reason at all, tapped the vexed Macedonian on the shoulder and said “you’re a c*nt.”

Wonderful stuff.

Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

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News in Brief

Not content with stuffing up Roman Abramovic’s Tesco clubcard account, the UK Government has announced sanctions against another Chelsea director, Eugene Tenenbaum for being too close to the Russian oligarch. Interestingly enough Tenenbaum is Kyiv-born.

Conor McLaughlin, one-time Sunderland right-back, has been forced to retire, aged 32. “The last 18 months or so have been an extremely difficult time both physically and mentally,” said the Northern Irishman, as he recalled memories of being in the same side as Callum McFadzean.

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has says the club needs to be “much more strict” after 30,000 Frankfurt fans managed to watch their side smash the Catalans 3-0 in the Europa League quarter final second leg at the Nou Camp. “Frankly what happened today makes me feel embarrassed and ashamed” the Barca supremo said. Ah well. Well, at least you had Messi for ages.

Photo by Pete Norton/Getty Images