Both players were at different times rated as the best in the world, but now they are likely seeing out their last years away from European football.

Messi is at Inter Miami in the MLS and Cristiano Ronaldo has decamped to Saudi Arabia with Al-Nassr.

They continue to impress but the competitiveness of their respective leagues are well below that in Europe.

Speaking to William Hill, Dublin said: “I think Cristiano Ronaldo is a better goalscorer than Lionel Messi. I think Messi is the better footballer, but Ronaldo is the best goalscorer in the world.

“This is how good Ronaldo was as a goalscorer; I scored 111 goals during my stint in the Premier League as a striker, he has scored something like 63 hat-tricks. How can someone have done that? It’s crazy!”

Former England manager Sam Allardyce offered his thoughts.

“We had the best time of it watching Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo competing against each other year in, year out, in Spain for ten years or so on the trot,” he said. “They were both hitting 30, 40 goals a season each season, with neither of them playing as a centre forward. Ronaldo might’ve ended up there in the later years but he’s always played wide, and Messi just played anywhere he wanted!

“The Ballon d’Or every year was just a case of wondering which one of those two it was going to be that year! It was an amazing time to just watch two world class players at the same time.

“I heard a statistic about how many goals Erling Haaland would have to score to catch Ronaldo’s tally, it was something like 50 goals a year! I remember when I first saw Ronaldo when he came on as a sub against Bolton when he’d just been bought from Portugal – he just destroyed Nicky Hunt in defence! I was standing there in the dugout thinking, ‘wow’.”

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