Shortly after regaining the European title in May last year, Sir Alex Ferguson dispensed champagne at Manchester United's training ground and promised that Cristiano Ronaldo would be around for a few more years. United's owners would defy Real Madrid; the Glazers, he stressed, had “balls”. They also have debts. Now, for the first time since Ferguson became manager in 1986, United have lost a star player they wanted to keep.

The £80million is no more consolation to Ferguson than £26million was to David Moyes when United plucked Wayne Rooney from Everton. You cannot replace the best - and Ronaldo is the most effective footballer Old Trafford has seen since Matt Busby rebuilt the club after the Second World War. Eric Cantona may have been the catalyst supreme, the substance through which Ferguson's United acquired a winning chemistry, but no one - not George Best, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton or even Duncan Edwards of the Busby Babes - has dominated a season as Ronaldo did in 2007-08.

It is axiomatic to state (as Ronaldo usually remembered to do while collecting awards) that he benefited from the players around him, but without his 42 goals they would probably not have been champions of England, let alone Europe, that season. There is no need to clutter the argument with statistics; just as anyone with a grasp of football would know that Carlos Tévez saved West Ham United from relegation in 2006-07, it is appreciated that Ronaldo made the difference between a good side and one hailed, in my view prematurely, as great.

Without his contribution, we should still be discussing Ferguson as a manager with unfinished business. Ronaldo carried United from the Beckham era to the threshold of a second successive European title in Rome, where Gerard Piqué's cynical body-check halted him when he was threatening to destroy Barcelona as he had destroyed Arsenal in their semi-final.

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Ronaldo fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful

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He owes United nothing. In return for Ferguson's patience and acumen in turning him from a hugely promising trickster, reluctant to play a pass when a dozen step-overs would do, into Thierry Henry's successor as the most directly damaging force in the English game, Ronaldo has taken a multitude of knocks while performing right, left or through the middle. For every dive that feeds the English obsession, there have been many stabs of pain and frustration as defenders fell him.

Clearly he is most comparable to Best, who was more elegant but less productive. While there have been few more histrionic players at Old Trafford, Ronaldo had all the abundant bravery of Best, whether in darting among defenders or throwing his head at the ball; apart from everything else, Ronaldo was devastating in the air.

No doubt cries of “good riddance” will be heard, but if Ferguson had heeded calls to banish Ronaldo after his wink at the dismissal of Rooney in the 2006 World Cup, Old Trafford would have been a poorer place. Now it is richer. In a sense.