Cristiano Ronaldo Has Unsurprising Response to Erik ten Hag’s Latest Criticism

Cristiano Ronaldo does not consider former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag to be “worth talking about” four years after a feud first began.

Ronaldo wound up leaving Old Trafford for the second time under a cloud at the end of 2022, a matter of months into Ten Hag’s reign. The Portuguese icon had publicly stated his lack of “respect” for Ten Hag in an explosive TalkTV interview with Piers Morgan and departed by mutual consent during the break in club soccer for the 2022 World Cup.

A two-part Ten Hag interview with The Athletic published last month included the Dutchman claiming that Ronaldo “let the team down.” Days later, Ten Hag appeared on Dutch television—the program Goedemorgen Eredivisie— and suggested Ronaldo was finished by the time he left Juventus in 2021, aged 36. “For the last seven or eight years, he just hasn’t been able to deliver,” Ten Hag said, calling it Real Madrid’s “great gift” to let a player go right before their decline.

Ronaldo has not publicly responded to Ten Hag’s latest comments, but chief supporter Morgan revealed on his Football Uncensored YouTube channel that he’d personally pressed the 41-year-old five-time Ballon d’Or winner about it.

“I did ask Cristiano about it and he said he didn’t think that Ten Hag was worth talking about,” Morgan stated. The journalist turned media personality offered his own take, which was unsurprisingly dismissive of Ten Hag and also took aim at current Portugal manager Jorge Jesus.

“I think Ronaldo could have given United another two, three years and scored a lot of goals for them,” he said. “It would have been an excellent, excellent comeback if he’d had the right manager with him. But he didn’t. He had a guy that disrespected him, treated him like s---, a bit like the Portuguese manager is trying to do now.

“These guys like to make a name for themselves out of Ronaldo.”

What Ronaldo’s Final Seven Months in Soccer Hold

Cristiano Ronaldo — Ronaldo is desperate to retire as the greatest goalscorer of all time. | Abdullah Ahmed/Getty Images

In 2026, Ronaldo’s career is inevitably winding down. The player himself has even admitted that this is likely to be his last season in professional soccer, coinciding with the expiry of his Al Nassr contract next summer.

Ronaldo chose to continue his Portugal career in the wake of the 2026 World Cup—when Lionel Messi opted to hang up his Argentina jersey for good—only to see things blow up last month because of a falling out with Jesus over what the player considered disrespect.

Ronaldo is currently serving a suspension from the national team—the minimum one-month term, conveniently in a period when there are no national team matches. He was also fined a nominal amount it takes around 40 seconds of his time to earn from his Al Nassr contract alone. But there is an expectation that he will be recalled this month.

His ultimate target is to win one more UEFA Nations League title with Portugal, as well as become the first player in soccer history to score 1,000 officially recognized goals. Both are within his reach, although Portugal must successfully navigate the knockout phase of the competition in March and June 2027, while Ronaldo doesn’t need many more to reach 1,000 goals—his quest getting a boost from an Al Nassr hat trick against Al Kholod last week.

But now that the historic milestone is getting closer, even greater scrutiny is being applied to his tally amid debate over a recent goal against Al Faisaly that he may not have touched at all. The Saudi Pro League credits Ronaldo with the goal, but not other official sources. It means that some claim he’s scored 984 career goals and others 985.

Add us as a preferred source on Google