Turn the clock back 30 days and Manchester United had no interest in signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Move it back even further, to the start of July, and once again Manchester United were never even interested in signing Cristiano Ronaldo. But move it forward to August 23 and there again, Manchester United were never even linked with a move for Cristiano Ronaldo but Manchester City were.

From right under City’s nose, they snatched back their former superstar even if he, if reports are to be believed, was offered to the club for most of this summer.

Both have their own place in football and while the moral standpoint is the clear winner, that is not what this article is about. Because we all know why Cristiano Ronaldo wanted this move, make no mistake of that as if there is one thing that is clear, this is the perfect, bar none, move for him. He arrives at a club that are desperately chasing after bonafide goal-scorer, with the team all but perfectly set-up to win albeit without a few pieces and a manager looking for hope somewhere.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has bravely undertaken the challenge where three managers failed in the past and has successfully managed to waltz out the other side, comparatively, unscathed and job intact. That alone is a bloody miracle but the fact that the club have walked out of it with a team in this kinda shape is even more impressive and nothing defines that more than this summer. They’ve signed Raphael Varane for a fee that is downright mind boggling alongside arguably the best English talent since Wayne Rooney himself.

Add that to Bruno Fernandes, budding superstars in Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw’s incredible resurgence and the enigmatic Paul Pogba, and you get a semblance of a team. The pieces are all there, arranged in the wrong order and missing a few but they are all there to create what could be a marvellous trophy-winning side. They may never be Manchester City or even Liverpool or even the Manchester United of old, but there’s enough there to suggest that they’ll be good enough when their time comes.

And yet, as the utterly boring and terrible draw at St Mary’s showed us this team sucks in possession, have a practically invisible midfield and have Anthony Martial as their forward with a teenager still figuring things out as back-up and Edinson Cavani. So for Cristiano Ronaldo, stepping into this team makes all the sense in the world even at 36 and then there’s that goddamn narrative. It removes the attention away from all the, very very very very very, bad bits and instead turns them on the fact that he’s back home.

That for the first time in, well, just under a decade, the team have a chance of competing for the title but with Ronaldo, that pressure moves up. The tap turns against them as now Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and co have to deal with all the critics saying, something along the lines of, “this is a title winning side”. That is even if they seem to lack a proper defensive midfielder/deep progressor to help facilitate and move the ball from defense to offense, thus plugging a very very large hole in the team.

Then there’s the fact that they can’t seem to beat teams with a low block, something even Liverpool struggled with against Chelsea, or do practically anything when being dominant in possession. And yet, that’s what the narrative will be for most of the two year contract Ronaldo has signed, which for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not good at all. But it offers the Norwegian a chance, something that he may never ever get again which is a guaranteed chance at a legacy right now, right here at Old Trafford.

It’s the club he claims to love, the one he calls home and the one he once played so many games for but with the Solskjaer problem of it all.  And it's added to the fact that he’s still referred to as the “PE teacher” across many different sections of football. A derogatory term any way you look at it but that’s his legacy for those outside the Manchester United persuasion and Ronaldo offers him a chance to change that.

As dreams go, this is his best chance of properly cementing himself as a United man, as someone who might one day get his name carved in stone somewhere at Old Trafford. Win the FA Cup and he might just get a statue, win the Carabao Cup and he might get a stand but win either the Champions League or a league title and a bust is calling his name somewhere. Win all three, maybe four, and the options are limitless and the stratosphere is the limit.

Either way, this is the dream, 90th minute and you’ve just got the chance to potentially set up your future and achieve what you’ve been dreaming of for decades. The only question is; will he answer the call? He has done it once before but twenty-something years on, will he do it again?