Manchester United legend Paul Scholes believes Cristiano Ronaldo refused to go on against Tottenham because of the situation at the time.
Ronaldo may have felt that manager Erik ten Hag was bringing him on late in the game to prove a point.
Ten Hag wanted to bring in Ronaldo with only minutes left in the game, when they were already 2-0 up and cruising.
The ex-England midfielder told BT Sport: "It gets in your head, you get to an hour and still not on, your head goes and I think the same thing has happened to Cristiano where he's thinking he's been left out.
"A biggish game, the year before he scored a hat-trick against Spurs, saw the team miss a lot of chances and he would be thinking he could score goals against this team easily.
"The longer the game goes on the more you get upset, the red mist comes. You're not thinking straight.
"To ask him to come on with two or three minutes, Cristiano would be thinking "is he taking the mickey out of me?"
