Piers Morgan has labelled Erik ten Hag as a ‘complete idiot’ and explained why he thinks he is incapable of managing Manchester United to glory. 

The television tsar also stuck his neck on the line with a daring claim about his friend Cristiano Ronaldo, who left Manchester United in 2022. 

It is his latest swipe against Ten Hag, who he previously branded a ‘clown’ for his handling of the fallout which saw United mutually terminate Ronaldo’s deal. 

‘Ten Hag is a complete idiot,’ Morgan told talkSPORT. ‘I’m sorry, he is. He has been since he went there, right? He talks in complete gibberish.

‘He’s now banging on about Harry Potter or something. Ten Hag is everything Ronaldo told me he was in that interview, which led to him leaving United.

‘The biggest problem with Ten Hag, he’s like that bossy little school teacher you get who doesn’t know how to handle supreme academic talent. 

‘So you look at the players he’s been unable to handle at United. Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford. It’s all the top players.

‘He can handle the lesser rung. He can handle the guys he brings in from Ajax who’ve never been on the big world stage, but he cannot handle top players.

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this because it’s a miracle, but they’ve actually gotten worse than they were last season.

‘So Cristiano Ronaldo, had he stayed at Manchester United, would have been immeasurably better than any of the strikers they’ve currently got as he’s proving for Portugal.

‘The guy is the greatest that has ever played the game, the greatest that will ever play the game. That’s why he’s the number one scorer. That’s why he’ll get to a thousand goals.’

Ronaldo is now on 901 career goals after scoring a late winner in Portugal’s 2-1 triumph over Scotland in the Nations League on Sunday. Pele claimed he scored 1283 goals to make him the all-time top scorer but this figure is contested. 

For the second year running, he has been excluded from the Ballon d’Or nominees – having previously been an annual contender since his first inclusion in 2004. 

Relations soured in his second stint at United when he was relegated to a bit-part role under Ten Hag in the Dutchman’s first season. 

Having grown increasingly frustrated, Ronaldo conducted an explosive interview with Morgan on TalkTV. Broadcast over two nights, the Portuguese made a series of bombshell claims, including that he felt betrayed by the club and that it hadn’t advanced since Sir Alex Ferguson left. 

‘I don’t have respect for him because he doesn’t respect me,’ he said of Ten Hag. Ronaldo was shown the door days later and Morgan ever since has banged his drum.

Morgan told talkSPORT: ‘The idea that anyone thinks after watching the last two Portugal games that Ronaldo is finished or that somehow he’s taken the easy gravy train in Saudi Arabia and therefore he can’t be taken seriously as a player.

‘All this bulls*** I’ve been hearing about it like, come on, look at the guy as Roy Keane, who I think is one of the most perceptive eyes for footballers in the world. 

‘As he said this week, there is no better finisher than Cristiano Ronaldo still out there as he’s shown. Last night he hit the post, then he scored. He had a disappointing Euros, but certainly Portugal did collectively. I don’t think he got the service he should have got.

‘But the truth is Ronaldo remains one of the most lethal finishers in world football.’