Erik ten Hag fires Cristiano Ronaldo brutal shot after fresh Manchester United comments

Erik ten Hag has fired back at Cristiano Ronaldo after the Manchester United legend explained that the club cannot compete for the Premier League title.

Manchester United have not won the Premier League title since Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013. In fact, it’s a stretch even to claim that they have competed for the trophy ever since.

Despite signing some of the best players in the world over the last 12 years, such as Paul Pogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphaël Varane, and Angel di Maria, the club has failed to reach the heights and standards it has set at Old Trafford.

Read More: What the Premier League’s transfer loophole means for Adrien Rabiot’s Man United hopes

Currently, Erik ten Hag is part of a rebuilding of the club overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS team. The strategy has become to focus on signing players for the future.

Leny Yoro, Manuel Ugarte, and Joshua Zirkzee have all joined with expectations of growing into brilliant players. Still, right now, Ronaldo, a club legend, reckons that the club needs time to rebuild, but they cannot compete for the Premier League title.

“They need to rebuild everything, in my opinion,” Ronaldo explained on Rio Ferdinand’s Podcast. “The club needs time to rebuild because it’s still one of the best clubs in the world, but they need to change. They understand that this is the only way.

“I believe that the future will be bright. I believe, but they don’t depend only on the talents. They have to rebuild from the bottom. If not, they cannot compete. It will be impossible.”

Often, when Ronaldo speaks, people listen—but this is not the case for Ten Hag. One of the first actions the Dutchman took when he joined the club was to get rid of Ronaldo, whom he felt was a net negative within his squad.

The player then moved to Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr, where he has since continued to score goals, recently reaching a career tally of 900.

On Thursday afternoon, Ten Hag hit back at the Portuguese international, hinting that Ronaldo’s opinion should not be listened to as he is “far away” in Saudi Arabia, and therefore unaware of what’s going on at Manchester United.

“He said that Manchester United can’t win the Premier League,” Ten Hag said. “He said this, if you read the article very well.

“So, he’s far away in Saudi, far from Manchester. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion. It’s OK.”

United have won just one of their three opening fixtures across 2024/25, siting 14th place in the league table.

Make sure to follow UtdDistrict on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to never miss out on any of our Manchester United content. Our podcast, What the Devil?, is released every Thursday at 6 pm (BST) on the United View YouTube channel.