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Portugal and Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo recently replied to his former teammate Wayne Rooney’s comment about his return to Old Trafford. The former English forward opined that Ronaldo’s return hasn’t helped the club and feels that the Red Devils need ‘younger, hungry players’ to be successful in the next few years.
“You'd have to say no,” Rooney said when asked about Ronaldo coming back to the Premier League during the Monday Night Football show. “He’s scored, he’s scored important goals in the Champions League games early on in the season,” he continued.
“He scored the hat-trick against Tottenham. But I think if you’re looking to the future of the club, you have to go with younger, hungry players to do their best to lift Manchester United over these next two or three years”, Rooney added.
Rooney also talked about how CR7 is getting old and isn’t the same player from his early years. He said, “And obviously, Cristiano is getting on a bit. He certainly isn’t the player he was when he was in his 20s. And that happens, that’s football. He’s a goal threat but I think the rest of the game they need more, they need young, hungry players.”
“I think they’ve got good young players. I think Sancho will be better next year, I think Marcus will be better next year. They’ve got good young players, I think Jesse Lingard should be playing for them because he brings energy, he brings quality. Scott McTominay has done well, so they have got some good young players”, Rooney quoted.
“They just have to get that confidence, get them believing they are good players and perform at a better level and then obviously whoever the new manager is he’ll bring his own players in and try to rebuild that group, ” he added.
Check out Ronaldo’s response to Rooney:
The 37-year-old didn’t ignore these comments by his former strike partner and used Instagram to express his view. The former Ballon D’or winner commented on Wayne Rooney's post about the show with fellow panelists David Jones and former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher and wrote ‘two jealous’ with an eyes emoji.