Gary Neville says Cristiano Ronaldo was “butchered and battered” during his first few years at Manchester United.
Ronaldo joined United from Sporting Lisbon in 2003, but did not acclimatise to life immediately in Manchester.
The Portuguese scored just 27 goals in 137 games of his first three seasons at Old Trafford, before finding his feet.
He went on to score 91 goals in his final three seasons for the club before leaving for a world-record fee in 2009, joining Real Madrid for around £80m.
Former teammate Neville says that Ronaldo became the player he is today because of his rough treatment in the dressing room.
“He didn’t arrive at Manchester United as someone who was setting the tone for everybody else. It wasn’t a case of he came in and all of a sudden everyone else upped their game, that’s not how it was,” Neville told talkSPORT.
“He became that out of what was in that dressing room. Cristiano was butchered and battered for two or three years at Manchester United and he has said it made him a man.
“He was setting the standards when he left, and he became someone who would come in and do half an hour before training and an hour after training, but there had been 20 players per season for 15 years doing that every day.
“The club, and Sir Alex, and the players all set the tone for each other.
“If you look at his performances in the first two or three years, his maturity, his decision making, his physicality, his petulance, they were all smoothed out over a period of three or four years at the club.”