Wayne Rooney, who played for Manchester United between 2004 and 2017 and helped the club win a series of honors, said United should allow Cristiano Ronaldo to leave as he has been requesting for months.

Rooney and Ronaldo paired at United between 2004 and 2009, helping the team win three Premier League championships and one UEFA Champions League title. Ronaldo left Old Trafford for Real Madrid in 2009 on what was the biggest transfer ever at that time: 96 million euros (about $137.3 million).

The Portuguese superstar returned to United in August 2021 and scored 24 goals in 38 games for the club in the 2021-22 season. They were sixth on the standings table with 58 points in the end, missing the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League as a result.

That's one of the reasons Rolando gave for seeking departure from United: He wants to join a club that can play in the Champions League. However, when his agent Jorge Mendes reached out to the teams that met Ronaldo's requirements on this, including Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid, they all rejected Ronaldo's arrival.

Despite that, Ronaldo remains firm on leaving United. He missed most of the team's preseason campaign and left Old Trafford early after he was substituted during the friendly against Rayo Vallecano earlier this week. Manager Erik ten Hag defended him a bit, but was not happy about his behavior either.

"I think United should let Cristiano Ronaldo go," Rooney wrote in his column for The Times. "It's not that Ronaldo can't play in a ten Hag team. He can play in any team. Ronny will always score you goals. But my personal view is that United aren't ready to challenge for the title now, so the aim has to be to build a team that can win the league in the next three to four years, and you have to plan for that."

"If the reports are true that Cristiano wants to leave the club, then United should allow him to go and get a No. 9 in who is going to be there for the next three or four years and really help them build a team that can be successful. Ten Hag has to be given time to do it," Rooney added.

As a former teammate of both Rooney and Ronaldo at United, Gary Neville called Ronaldo's situation with the club "distracting" and "messy." He wanted the Portuguese striker to speak publicly about his future at Old Trafford.

"The Ronaldo situation is distracting. You saw ten Hag in the press conference on Friday having to answer questions about it," Neville said on Friday Night Football. "Would it be too much to ask for him to come out and do an interview to clear things up, tell us what he's actually thinking and what actually is happening? Would that be too much to ask a senior player? Is he not going to do an interview for the next three weeks? Is he not going to do an interview on Sunday after the game?"

"This is messy for him, messy for the club. It is messy for everybody. We want him to stay. We are desperate for him to stay. We just don't like these side sagas that drag on," he said.

United will host Brighton at home on Sunday for their first Premier League game of the 2022-23 season.