“The guy had everything” – Ex-Barcelona and Manchester United star compared to Cristiano Ronaldo by his former teammate
Neil Lennon recently compared former Manchester United and Barcelona striker Henrik Larsson to Cristiano Ronaldo. Lennon was previously a player and manager of Scottish Premier League side Celtic.
Larsson made a name for himself in the European football circuit for his goalscoring ability. While the Swedish striker spent the majority of his career at Celtic, he represented clubs like Barcelona and Manchester United as well.
Speaking about his former teammate Larsson, Lennon recently told Celtic Odds:
"Henrik from his peak, so the ages of 28 onwards, you would be talking about £100million plus comfortably. I really like Darwin Nunez at Liverpool, he wouldn’t be as prolific as Henrik, and he was £75m."
He added:
"So you would easily need to talk more for Henrik because of his ratio of goals to games. Henrik left Celtic on a free to join Barcelona and he more or less scored in every game when he played for them."
Lennon further said:
"He came on in the Champions League final against Arsenal in 2006 and changed the game. Then he went to Man United - at the age of about 35, 36 - and he wins the Premier League. The guy had everything, he was world class and I was fortunate enough to play with him for four or five years."
"Every time you sat in the dressing room, you would look at him and just know you had a chance in the game because he could score with either foot and he was unbelievable in the air."
Further speaking about Larsson's aerial ability, Lennon said:
"He used to hang like Cristiano Ronaldo, bearing in mind he wasn’t a particularly tall guy and didn’t have rippling shoulder muscles."
Larsson scored 19 goals and provided six assists during his time at Barcelona. He shared the pitch with Ronaldo for the Red Devils. The former Swedish international scored three goals in 13 appearances during a brief loan spell for the Old Trafford club.
Cristiano Ronaldo has settled to life at Al-Nassr well after leaving Manchester United
Cristiano Ronaldo's second Manchester United spell came to a tumultuous end. The Portuguese failed to find a regular place in the starting XI earlier this season under Erik ten Hag.
He gave an explosive interview with Piers Morgan, criticizing the club's facilities and Dutch coach Ten Hag. This resulted in him exiting the club via mutual termination of his contract.
Cristiano Ronaldo went on to join Al-Nassr as a free agent. Since making his debut for the Saudi Arabian club in January, the former Manchester United attacker has scored 11 goals and provided two assists in 11 matches for Al-Nassr.