Stephen Ireland has been ridiculed by fans after he claimed a string of Premier League stars such as Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes never got the better of him as a player.
The former Republic of Ireland star revealed that he was never blown away by these players, as well as Paul Scholes, and feels he more than held his own when he came up against these players.
"I played against huge names, and on the day they never got the better of me and I never played against them and went wow these are incredible," said Ireland.
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"Stephen Gerrard for example. Frank Lampard, everytime I played against him I always got the better of him. Even though they were incredible players, on the day - and I can only go on that - I can turn around and say they're great players. Paul Scholes, they're great players, but I've never had a game where I thought 'God, I'm out of my depth.'
"That was never the case."
After his comments raised eyebrows, Ireland appeared on TalkSPORT that evening to further explain his thoughts, and even went as far to say he wasn't that impressed when he played against Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
"You get asked the question 'who's the best player you played against or played with?' Your experience is different to a fan or someone who is watching the game.
"I've played for Man City against Barcelona in a pre-season friendly, Messi played and he wasn't good and we won the game. I can't say Messi's the best player I've played against because my experience in that game is he wasn't good.
"I played against Ronaldo four or five times when I was at City and he was at United, and he got sent off one or two times and we won every game against him, so it's hard for me to say Ronaldo's the best player I ever played against."
In fairness to Ireland, he did qualify his answer by saying comparing his career to any of those legends would be 'like night and day,' but in terms of matches against these stars, Ireland felt he acquitted himself well.
Unsurprisingly, the former Stoke City midfielder's comments haven't gone down well with fans of these players and the clubs they played for, with many taking to social media to take Ireland to task for his comments.
"Who knew the answer to the Scholes/Lampard/Gerrard debate would have been Stephen Ireland," said Adam.
"Stephen Ireland played 13 times against Liverpool with 3 different clubs. He never registered a win," said Paul.
"Stephen Ireland was also subbed after an hour in Chelsea's 6-0 drubbing of Man City at the Bridge in 2007, in which Frank Lampard got 2 assists," said a Chelsea fan.
While Michael said, "No point turning up against Stephen Ireland, not getting near him."
A number of Manchester United fans pointed out that in the seven games Ireland and Ronaldo played against each other in their times in Manchester, Ronaldo scored three goals and registered an assist as United won four games against their rivals during that time.
Two of those goals scored by the Portuguese star helped to seal Premier League title wins (2007 & 2009).
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