John Giles feels Phil Neville is off the mark to make comparisons between Manchester United legend George Best and Cristiano Ronaldo whose goalscoring feats continue unabated.
After Ronaldo scored a hat-trick for Real Madrid to help them past Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League semi final on Tuesday.
Neville, who played with Ronaldo briefly at Man United, suggested that the Portugal captain (as well as Lionel Messi) is "easily the equal" of Pele and Best.
The former United and Everton player also suggested Messi and Ronaldo are the "two best players who have ever lived".
"He's totally wrong. George Best actually was a team player," said John on Off The Ball when asked about Neville's view.
"George Best scored a lot of goals but also created a lot of goals. The Law-Best-Charlton trio, actually it was well known in football, they didn't get on all that well. But when they were on the pitch, they were all good pros. If Denis Law was on to give Georgie Best an easy chance, he'd do it and Best would be the same.
"Best contributed an awful lot more in 90 minutes to a match than Ronaldo ever would."
On Neville's point about Ronaldo, he added: "I don't know what he'd be on about when he's comparing George Best in any way to Ronaldo". However, when it comes to Ronaldo's stature in the game, he does agree with Neville that the Portugal star is up there with the best of them, even though he would still have Messi ahead of him, adding that Messi is a team player while still scoring a tonne of goals.
John also gave his take on Ronaldo's mentality within a game where the focus is not on contributing to general play like Messi does but an emphasis on springing into action when there are goalscoring opportunities.
"Ronaldo always wants to be the star of the match and the best way to be the star is to score goals. So he has a certain temperament which is most unusual in football that he's not really bothered about contributing to the game. It doesn't make you a star contributing to the game. What makes you a star is scoring goals and I'm only talking about mentality," said John, who added that in his own career he couldn't dream of going 10 minutes without touching the ball in a match.
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