Cristiano Ronaldo is set to deliver the news we’ve all suspected for weeks now: that he’s off to Real Madrid. Depending on which newspapers you read and sports channels you watch, some have said he’s already said he won’t play in the Premier League again, while others have him saying he’ll make an announcement in the next few days. However long it takes, the outcome is inevitable.

We know Sir Alex Ferguson can be a very persuasive man, but when his acts of persuasion are exhausted, money talks - and that’s exactly why Ronaldo won’t be staying at Old Trafford.

At the moment, Manchester United are the best domestic team in Europe and, as we saw last season, Ronaldo is the current golden boy at the club. He’s paid ridiculous amounts of money by the club AND by his sponsors, he plays in arguably the best league in the world and he’s just won the Champions League. Is he likely to repeat that at Madrid?

In my opinion, no he won’t. Real might win the Primera Liga at least every other year, but they currently lack the cohesion and the ability as a team to dominate in Europe - with or without Ronaldo.

The reason he has decided to jump ship now is a strange one. He’s only 23 so he has a decade ahead of him in footballing terms, but where do you go from Real Madrid if it all goes wrong? There are very few clubs that would be prepared to take him on because no one else could afford his demands. He’s probably going to be on double his current salary, and that’s before his sponsorship deals become even more lucrative, a la David Beckham’s move to Spain.

Fergie and United will pick up a rather useful £60million or so, which doesn’t come around in one go very often. It's not a bad return on the £12m they paid for him just five years ago and, given how good Ronaldo been in recent seasons and the success they have achieved since 2007, he and the money men upstairs will be very happy, even if they would rather have him stay.

The problem is, what does Fergie do with all that cash? Does he spend some on a new striker? Forget Louis Saha, he’s not world-class - he's not even fit - and even if Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney can match their 19 and 18 respective league goals from last season, it still won’t be enough for United to dominate the way they do with an all-dancing, all-diving Ronaldo.

At times last season the game was won but United would go on to bang in an avalanche of goals - the 6-0 drubbing handed out to Newcastle United springs to mind, a game that also saw Ronaldo’s first United hat-trick.

Will they still be as dominant without the Portuguese attacker? I can’t see it. It’s not just goals he brings, it’s his crossing ability, his turn of pace, his vision, his speed of thought, his ability to beat people without trying. With Ronaldo, you don’t have to spend five minutes setting up your pieces for a checkmate, he steams straight in there and gets the job done, leaving the opposition completely dumbfounded. But without him, Fergie has some big decisions to make.

The old saying that “one player doesn’t make a team” comes around quite often when your best player is about to be sold, but in the case of United’s recent success, it’s somewhat wrong: one player DOES make a team... better than it will be without him.

United may go on to win the Premier League next year without Ronaldo, but they will score fewer goals and lose more games, and the race will be even closer than it was last season. And Fergie and Co will have to watch the Champions League final in Rome on TV along with the rest of us.