The difficult relationship between Ralf Rangnick and Cristiano Ronaldo reached a new low on Sunday as the Manchester United coach left the Portuguese forward out of his squad for the Manchester derby.

Manchester United were resoundly beaten 4-1 at the hands of Manchester City, placing the coach's decision not to name Ronaldo in the squad even more firmly in the spotlight.

Manchester United: crises and disagreements

Rangnick justified his decision to leave Ronaldo out of the squad at full-time by stating that Ronaldo was carrying a hip injury.

"My doctor came to see me on Friday morning before training and told me Cristiano Ronaldo cannot train because of some problems with his hip flexor and the same was true on Saturday and that's why he couldn't be part of the squad," said Rangnick.

However, this decision was widely questioned, most notably by Ronaldo's sister, Katia Aveiro, who liked an Instagram post disputing the decision.

"Ronaldo was at 100 percent, he didn't play simply because of technical and tactical reasons," read the caption of the Instagram post.

CR7-Rangnick: a disagreement and a suspicious journey

Upon hearing that he was not to be included in the squad to face Manchester City, Ronaldo failed to meet with the team on Saturday night and instead travelled to Portugal.

According to The Sun, his Manchester United teammates were left shocked at his failure to turn up, and believe that he should have joined them ahead of such a key fixture.

Cristiano himself felt that he was ready to place in the match at the Etihad Stadium after showing himself to be fit at training in the build-up to the fixture.

He was infuriated by his coach's decision to leave him out of the squad, although according to sources close to the player, the purpose of his trip was to have his hip flexor treated, on a weekend when his relationship with Rangnick plummeted to new lows.

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Source: Marca