Wayne Rooney has taken a fresh swipe at Cristiano Ronaldo in ongoing spat between the former Manchester United teammates.
The Red Devils legend, appearing on Indian TV station JioCinema, was asked on Sunday who he would start, who he would bench and who he would drop between Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Harry Kane.
Rooney said Argentina talisman Messi would 'have' to play, while quickly stating that he would bench England captain Kane.
Rooney then claimed that he would drop his former strike partner Ronaldo, but only because the Portugal star has not been featuring regularly for Erik ten Hag's side this season.
It comes after Rooney responded to Ronaldo 's 'rat' jibe by describing his former Manchester United strike partner's comments as 'strange' and appearing to back the club sacking him.
During his bombshell interview with Piers Morgan, Ronaldo took aim at Rooney's criticism of him in the media, suggesting there was 'jealousy' because he was better looking and still playing.
The 'rat' insult came after Morgan said he was trying to figure out how Rooney could dislike Ronaldo even more. He asked: 'More pounds in the bank or more Instagram followers?'
Laughing, Ronaldo replied: 'That's a good question! Probably similar!'
Morgan said: 'I'm just trying to work out how Wayne Rooney could hate you even more.'
Ronaldo answered: 'Not only him, imagine the rest of the rats they are going to criticise me too, but it is good to still be the No 1.'
The 37-year-old also said of Rooney, also 37, in the interview: 'Probably [it's jealousy]. 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.'
Now Rooney has responded to Ronaldo's comments, telling CNN: 'Well, listen, Cristiano Ronaldo's a fantastic player and, as I've said before, he and [Lionel] Messi are the two best players probably to play the game.
'And, again, it's not a criticism. What I've said is age comes to all of us, and Cristiano is obviously is feeling that and he's finding it hard to deal with that.
'Obviously he's done an interview that's gone global. Bit strange, some of the comments are strange in there but I'm sure Manchester United will deal with it once they've seen the full interview and they'll take whatever action they need to take.'