The main talking point that came out of yesterday's Manchester Derby was Cristiano Ronaldo's reaction to being substituted at around the hour mark in the game.

Manchester United were comfortable at 2-0 up and understandably, Sir Alex Ferguson decided to take of some players who will be playing against Wigan in the Premier League on Wednesday. Ronaldo wasn't happy at all.

He walked off the pitch in a tantrum, a tracksuit was held towards him by a member of United's staff and sat down in a strop. For the rest of the match he was either shaking his head or looking miserable. Once the final whistle went, he was straight off to the changing rooms and 15 minutes later he was leaving the ground.
Was that a show of passion, did he want to carry on? or was it a sign of petulance, did he disagree with the manager?

I see his reaction as passion, that could possibly be because I am a Manchester United supporter and want to see the best in Ronaldo but there are other factors to think about. Ronaldo has said that he wants to be the top scorer and wants to score more goals than last season. That isn't going to happen but he wants to score as many goals as he can. City were playing poorly and he saw a chance of scoring more goals.

That is no excuse for his behaviour, if he has a problem with it he shouldn't do it in front of 75, 000+ people in the ground and thousands (or even millions) watching it on TV.

Sir Alex Ferguson did respond to it after the game and this is what he said:

“He [Ronaldo] wanted to stay on. He’s in great form but I have to look at the big picture.
“We have to think about keeping him as fresh as we can. It’s fabulous that they want to play.
“Of course he wants to play, you know what he’s like. He’s such a great athlete but he ran his socks off on Tuesday.
“I’ve got Wednesday night at Wigan and Saturday against Arsenal to think about. So there was no problem.
“Wednesday will be a hard game. I’ll freshen it up again.
“We’ll make two or three changes. I need to do that because I’ve a big squad and I need to keep them playing.”