Ander Herrera, the former Manchester United midfielder, has said there “is no room for criticism” of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

Herrera played with Messi after the Argentine joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2021.

In an interview with ESPN, he spoke of his love for United and defended Ronaldo’s slow start to the season.

“When you have a player who scored 24 or 25 goals last season, how can you say this player is not for the team?"

“The top scorer of the team, one of the top scorers in Europe." Probably not going to score 50 goals every season, of course, but he’s still fighting, scoring, and taking care of himself every day, every single training [session], so respect.

“Now, you have to control the charge of him in terms of training and games. You can’t make him play every single game of the season. In the big moments, he will be there."

“There is one thing you cannot lie about; the stats." And Ronaldo … always putting the face to fight, to score, to run, to take the responsibility of the team — for me there is no space for criticism with Cristiano or with Leo.

“Of course, everyone’s going to talk about them because they’re probably the two best players in the history of football,” Herrera said.