Wayne Rooney has not included Cristiano Ronaldo among the four players he believes could start for Manchester City this season from the 2007/08 Manchester United team which ended the club's nine-year wait for a Champions League title.
Although Ronaldo won the first of his five Ballon d'Or awards later that year, Rooney has not included him on the list, but he thinks that Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and himself would get into Pep Guardiola's side.
City are favourites for the Premier League title this term and they're still in contention to win the FA Cup and Champions League.
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In his column with the Telegraph, Rooney explained his list and admitted the 2007/08 United team would be slightly inferior to City.
"Could the 2008 United team have competed with City? Head-to-head, we’d have had a good chance but over a 38-game season they would have had the edge," Rooney wrote. "I think we’d have been similar to Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool.
"We'd be able to beat them in one-off games but usually just a bit behind them in the final league table. There were players in our team who would have got into this City side. Paul Scholes would have been perfect, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic too.
"I believe I would have fitted into it as well — and I would have loved to play with Kevin De Bruyne and [Erling] Haaland."
Rooney added: "After winning in 2008, we reached two further finals over the next three seasons and if City win this year I’m sure that, like us, they’ll get to more finals. At the same time, they’ll keep strengthening that already incredible squad. The scary thing is they could go on and win it multiple times, doing something similar to what Madrid have done over the past few years.
"If they win the Champions League and the title, as much as it pains me, I think you’d have to put City up there with United’s 1999 treble-winners as the best Premier League team of all time."
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