Noel Gallagher reckons that Manchester City's treble triumph will "shut up" Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, reigniting his light-hearted feud with the punditry duo.
The former Oasis rocker, 56, watched from a bar while on tour in San Diego as City beat Inter Milan on Saturday to earn their first ever Champions League title, having already won the Premier League and FA Cup this season. However, Pep Guardiola and co's achievements have been under scrutiny since Premier League officials hit them with 115 breaches of their financial rules in February.
Gallagher recently claimed that City's success would only be "tainted" in the eyes of Manchester United legend Neville - who famously won the treble with Red Devils in 1999 - and Liverpool icon Carragher, and he took aim at them once again after Guardiola's side pulled off a narrow 1-0 victory in Istanbul to finally be crowned kings of Europe. "It sits everybody down for a bit," the now seasoned solo artist is quoted as saying by The Mail.
"The people who like to criticise City, it just shuts everybody up. It shuts Carragher up, Neville, Rio (Ferdinand), all those guys who think they have got a divine right to waltz around the landscape of the media because they did something that no one else has done."
Gallagher added: "When Sheikh Mansour took over, they said we were going to do it… a lot of people have been vindicated. Everybody watches the Champions League final and to win it puts you on the world stage and means that everybody can take a deep breath now.
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"I can't even put it into words. It won't sink in for a while. It was exhausting watching it. I would love to be back in England now because I can't celebrate with my kids. They're all celebrating with their friends."
City's feat gives them immortality in English football, with United being the only other side who've managed to do the treble. Gallagher feels that while the rivalry between red and blue still burns strong, there's a mutual respect between both for their separate incredible achievements, 24 years apart.
"Winning the Treble means we are now in a very exclusive room of two teams," he explained. "We are there with that great, great United team from 1998-99 that we all loved watching, even City fans, until they scored and then we turned it off. There was drama unfolding in front of you with that team.
"Where we come from, Mancunian United fans, they know as well how good this City team is. They're not idiots. City fans will tell you now, that United team in 1999 was amazing.
"The only thing we hated was the stupid banner they had at Old Trafford that kept ticking over about how many years it was since we'd won a trophy. The boot's on the other foot now but that was it.
"Other than that, who is not going to respect Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and all those lads who came from Manchester. I've had about 30 text messages off United fans I know saying, 'Fair play, well done'."
