Cristiano Ronaldo will go trophyless for first time in SEVENTEEN YEARS after Champions League exit

Cristiano Ronaldo has been condemned to his first season without a trophy for 17 years after Manchester United were knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday.

The club's dismal exit at the last-16 stage was sealed by a 1-0 win for Atletico Madrid at Old Trafford.

And Portuguese forward Ronaldo's run of winning trophies at club level, which has continued unbroken since 2005, will now come to an end in his first season back at the Red Devils since signing from Juventus last summer.

United's European debacle also means they will now go without silverware for the fifth campaign in a row.

Moreover, it is far from certain the Red Devils will even qualify for the Champions League next season, with rivals Arsenal currently fourth in the Premier League - the last qualifying spot - a point ahead and having played three games fewer.

Ronaldo, 37, after scoring a hat-trick to help United beat Tottenham 3-2 on Saturday, had a poor game on a personal level, failing to record a single shot across the whole match.

That damning statistic marks only the third time in he's failed to do so in Champions League games and the first time since 2011, when he played for Spanish side Real Madrid against Barcelona.

And club icon Paul Scholes insisted it would not be a quick fix to sort out the cultural issues at United, claiming even a star signing like Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland or Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe would not solve their problems.

He said on BT Sport after the match: 'We've had a lot of pain, and there's still a bit of pain to come before we get to where we want to.

'I keep saying it, until we get a proper coach, a top-class unique coach, that wins football trophies, strikes fear into football players (we won't be back at the highest level).

'Liverpool and Man City (are right at the top), it's a high bar now, consistency in which they play at the moment, the numbers they are getting… it could be two, three, four years, it could be that long before they are challenging.

'We haven't had that for eight years, ten years, since Sir Alex Ferguson left and there's no sign getting close to that, it feels we're going in the opposite direction.

'What it does show you, it doesn't matter what players you get together, what collection, what talent you get together, you need someone to harness that. You need a manager to pull all that together.

'If you bring in (Kylian) Mbappe and (Erling) Haaland this summer, United are still not winning the league. It doesn't matter who you bring in, it needs to be from the top down.'