Wayne Rooney responds to Cristiano Ronaldo criticism

Wayne Rooney has admitted that he found "some of the comments" Cristiano Ronaldo made during his explosive interview a "bit strange".

The two players featured alongside each other at Manchester United between 2004 and 2009, with the duo both key to the club's success during that particular period.

Ronaldo hit out at his former teammate during his recent interview with Piers Morgan, with the Portugal international also criticising the now DC United manager's personal appearance.

"To listen as ex-colleagues or teammates criticise you, when they only see one point of view. It's easy to criticise, I don't know if you have a job in television that they must criticise to be more famous. I really don't understand it," the 37-year-old told Morgan on TalkTV.

"It's hard when you see people who was in the dressing room with you criticising that way. I think they take advantage of that because they are not stupid. I'm the number one followed guy in the world. It's not by coincidence.

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"Me too [surprised about this]. Piers, I don't understand. You should ask the questions to him [Rooney]. I don't know. I don't know why he criticised me so badly. Probably [jealously]. Probably - because he finished his career in his 30s. I'm still playing at a high level; I'm not going to say that I'm looking better than him, which is true.

"A year ago, or six months ago. We were here, in my house, he came to pick up his children here and he invited my son to go home to play football."

Rooney called Ronaldo "a fantastic player" when asked about the criticism but admitted that he was a bit surprised by some of the comments that were made.

Man United's all-time leading goalscorer also backed the club to "take whatever action they needed to take".

"He's a fantastic player. Him and [Lionel] Messi are probably the two best players to play the game. It's not criticism, what I've said is age comes to all of us, Cristiano is finding it hard to deal with that," Rooney told CNN.

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"He's done an interview and it's gone global - bit strange some of the comments but I'm sure Manchester United will deal with it once they see the full interview and take whatever action they need to take."

Man United are allegedly preparing to terminate Ronaldo's deal, with the club confident that they have grounds to do so due to a breach of contract.

Ronaldo was also critical of former Man United captain Gary Neville, ex-interim head coach Ralf Rangnick, current manager Erik ten Hag and the club's owners during the explosive interview.

The forward is currently with the Portugal squad preparing for the World Cup, but he could potentially become a free agent in the coming weeks.

Sporting Lisbon are currently viewed as the favourites to re-sign him, although Ronaldo would have to be prepared to take a huge reduction on his current salary in order to return to the Portuguese giants.