This is the (s)hack

I feared the worst before looking through the match reports this morning, expecting the usual Ronaldo bashing.  This feeling was not only due to the expectation that the normal biases would be in evidence, but also to the utter blindness the ITV commentators demonstrated.  It started when the Villerreal player pinched Ronaldo on the cheek and throughout the replays all they could talk about was Ronaldo making a meal of fouls and going down easily, and the complete refusal to accept that Capdevila deserved to be sent off for a foul which saw studs connect with Ronaldo's Knee, no matter how many replays were shown, instead talking about Ronaldo going down easily and making a meal of things.  So I expected a similar treatment from the papers this morning (especially as he'd been booked for dissent).
Imagine my surprise then to see that most of the papers are actually praising Ronaldo.  Seriously.
The Guardian make this astonishing claim: "Ronaldo, it should be stressed, was the innocent party."  I can hardly believe I've just quoted those words from a national newspaper...
The Times has a "little sympathy":

The United forward was subjected to some horrible challenges, with Joan Capdevila, the Spain full back, sent off for the worst of them with eight minutes remaining.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, complained of “systematic” fouling of his No 7 and, while such grievances have often fallen on deaf ears in the past, Ronaldo was entitled to a little sympathy last night. Even if it is not always easy to draw parallels between late tackles and “being hit with a baton as you walk down the street”, to use the analogy that Ferguson employed on his arrival in Spain on Monday night, the cumulative impact of the physical suffering that Ronaldo endures over the course of a game, let alone a season, must be enormous. Prima donna he may be, but there are times when his posturing and flouncing can be excused. This match was one of them.

Still the odd dig in there but definately an improvement over the usual.

The Mail are full of praise for him:

it was difficult not to admire the manner in which the 23-year-old led his team’s attacking efforts in the Estadio El Madrigal last night.

After taking such a verbal and physical buffeting at Villa Park on Saturday evening, Ronaldo could have sat this rather meaningless game out and prepared himself
instead for the rigours of Sunday’s visit to the City of Manchester Stadium.

But he chose to play and on a night when attacking football of any note was thin on the ground, he emerged from another evening of rough and tumble tackling with sore ankles but with his reputation as a footballer enhanced.

Ronaldo was pretty much under assault all night. Not all of it was particularly vicious or crude. Some of it was not even intentional. But the monotony of it was notable and
the point is that it was not particularly unusual.

The Sun has this great sentence:

If this player is a diver then he does it in a bramble bush.

The Independent can't quite bring themselves the whole hog and still manage to find some criticism of Ronaldo:

He is operating in a perpetual state of agitation – reluctant to accept a handshake; ready to take the extra, theatrical roll when fouled. He was also quite prepared in the second half here to stand, hands on hips, near the partisan Villareal's partisan Frente Amarillo 'ultras', eyeballing the assistant referee who adjudged him to have fouled Capdevila. After removing the ball to where he thought the kick should be taken, he was booked for dissent.

But even they accept he was "more sinned against than sinner".
Why this change of heart?  Is it because it was just really too much to ignore it last night (unless you're Jim Beglin)?  Or is it because Sir Alex had a go:

his manager said the treatment confirmed his theory that Ronaldo is a deliberate and sustained target for United's opponents.

"If
the referee does his job that's sufficient. The problem is the press
don't do enough," said Ferguson. "Systematic fouling is happening now,
it is a tactic. One foul becomes another becomes another, and
eventually the referee thinks he's diving.

You decide...