Those who say Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t pass, look away from these assist stats now

There must be some self-serving reason for Cristiano Ronaldo clocking up this many assists.

He's in it for himself, he only cares about his own goal stats and, yeah yeah, he might set up a pile of goals too but obviously it's in his own interest to do so. Right? The Real Madrid star has no end of critics and the problem with that is that even his backers can go over the top in the other direction. When you get a divisive character, he gets slated when he shouldn't and he gets praised more than he deserves too so it's sometimes hard to find the line of reason beneath all the hyperbole. What isn't up for debate is that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the two greatest footballers of all time. The pair of them have ruined stats for everyone else for good. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/784714149725110272 There used to be a time when scoring a goal every other game made you a god amongst men. It still does to a large extent but not really. Either you're hitting the net as many times as you're playing or you're just not considered as one of the best anymore. That's the game now and it's that way because of Ronaldo and Messi. Since the Portugal native joined Real Madrid, his record and his counterpart's record in all club competitions are simply ridiculous.

Ronaldo scores a goal every 0.97 games. Messi scores a goal every 0.99 games.

Assists-wise, Messi leads the way but don't make the mistake of thinking Real's finisher doesn't chip in too.

Ronaldo assists a goal every 3.45 games. Messi assists a goal every 2.58 games.

That means the pair of them are actually involved in considerably more than an average of one goal per game.

Ronaldo has been directly involved in 1.32 goals every game. Messi has been directly involved in 1.39 goals every game.

On Tuesday night, Real Madrid hit five past Legia Warsaw but a quick glance at the scoresheet and you'd assume their number seven just wasn't playing. He was though and he chipped in with two assists for his night's work too. Assist for Marco Asensio. Ronaldo's first instinct is to score, it always is. But a bad first touch leaves him in trouble so he reacts quickly and improvises to tee up his team mate towards the edge of the box. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmZqxHZ5CX8 Assist for Alvaro Morata. This is just class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keZmBllZTsk These goals (or assists, whatever way you look at it) are nothing really out of the ordinary and they're nothing we'll be glued to the highlight reels with in years to come but, added up, they read bloody brilliantly. They read like people wouldn't expect them to - not in his detractors' camp anyway. Those two assists on Tuesday put Ronaldo just two behind the all-time leading assists holder in the Champions League. That man is still Ryan Giggs. For now. Where Giggs took 143 games to amass 30 assists, Ronaldo has notched up 28 in 130 games. And he's also chipped in with 95 goals in that time too. He's a good player. Let's just leave it at that. Catch up with the latest episode of Football Friday Live: