'Far away in Saudi' - Erik ten Hag's blunt response to Cristiano Ronaldo after ex-Man Utd star's damning assessment of Red Devils' title chances

Ronaldo had told Rio Ferdinand that Ten Hag should not have declared that United could not compete for the Premier League title, and also gave a scathing assessment of the Red Devils' current plight. The manager responded by appearing to mock the fact that Ronaldo now plays his football in Saudi Arabia.

Ten Hag told a press conference: "He said that Manchester United can’t win the Premier League. He said this if you read the article very well. He's far away in Saudi, far away from Manchester. Everyone can have an opinion. It's okay. It doesn't impact me, I know in the process where we are, where we're going."

Ten Hag was in charge of Ronaldo for less than four months in his first season as United manager. The pair's relationship got off to a rocky start when Ronaldo left a pre-season friendly against Rayo Vallecano at half-time and was further aggravated when the Portugal superstar refused to come off in a Premier League game against Tottenham in October 2022, leading to him being briefly suspended from the squad. Ronaldo left United one month later following his infamous interview with Piers Morgan and later joined Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr.

Ronaldo has scored in each of his last four games for club and country, netting in Al-Nassr's opening two league games of the season and in Portugal's UEFA Nations League victories over Croatia and Scotland.

United can kickstart their Premier League season on Saturday at Southampton after a poor start to the campaign, losing their second game against Brighton before being thrashed 3-0 by Liverpool. New signing Manuel Ugarte could make his debut for the Red Devils at St Mary's.