Search icon

Sport

29th Oct 2017

Cristiano Ronaldo’s awful stats can no longer be ignored

The slump is real

Ben Kiely

If Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t firing on all cylinders, generally speaking, neither are Real Madrid.

Real Madrid suffered a shock loss to La Liga newcomers Girona on Sunday and unsurprisingly, Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t have a very good game.

As the team’s talisman, he is intrinsic to everything that his side does. So when they are breezing past the opposition and playing gorgeous football, he can revel in the glory.

However, when they lose 2-1 to a team who weren’t even in the Spanish top flight last year, he can’t avoid the criticism.

Not long into the second half, the game’s definitive goal was scored by a man in a red and white-striped jersey. Estadi Montilivi doubled Girona’s advantage shortly after Christian Stuani drew his side level. Isco’s opener on the 15 minute mark seemed like it had occurred eons ago once the ball struck the Madrid net for a second time.

It appears as though a scoring Ronaldo is a happy Ronaldo, but he failed to find the net again against the minnows.

Clearly this dry spell is having an impact on the Portuguese star. He was a frustrated man on the pitch and he took it out on the opposition.

If Ronaldo was scoring, Madrid probably wouldn’t have lost that game, they wouldn’t be eight points behind Barcelona and punters wouldn’t be already writing off their chances of winning the league at Halloween.

However, Ronaldo has only managed to grab a solitary league goal so far this campaign and his conversion rate is shockingly low.

Crazy to think this is the same guy who scored five goals in three games in the Champions League.