Revealed: The Cristiano Ronaldo quality team-mates admire the most as Nottingham Forest new boy Anthony Elanga reflects on working with all-time great at Man Utd

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner has cemented a standing among the all-time greats as a result of his relentless pursuit of perfection. He is arguably the greatest goalscorer that the world has ever seen – and is still going strong at 38 years of age with Saudi Arabian outfit Al-Nassr.

Those that are fortunate enough to become team-mates of Ronaldo take plenty of important lessons from him, with Elanga among those to have benefited from monitoring the legendary forward at close quarters. The Sweden international is now at Nottingham Forest, having left Manchester United in a £15 million ($19m) transfer, and is hoping to emulate Ronaldo in one important area.

Elanga has told Sky Sports: “I played with arguably one of the best players in the world – of all time– Ronaldo. And obviously playing with the likes of Bruno and Christian Eriksen, I can go through the whole team, [Raphael] Varane, Casemiro, I learned a lot from them, not just what they do on the pitch but off the pitch as well, their discipline and how they look after themselves. It just shows he [Ronaldo] has been able to play until he is 38, it shows his discipline and how he is able to look after himself if you can take a little chapter out of his book then you can go a long way. I took a lot of things and I am trying to bring that to here and just trying to do it on the regular basis. The last two games have shown what I can do and I just want to keep that momentum going.”

Elanga will be back at Old Trafford for the first time as a visiting player on Saturday, with United readying themselves for a Premier League home date with Forest.