Yep, a professional who scored 800+ goals, the top scorer in the history of the game, our top-scorer this season, looks after his body and fitness like a maniac, has an elite winning mentality, without him we'd be out of CL and I don't even know how low we'd be in the league, yet you have posters here slating him, it's beyond stupid. Instead of playing to his abilities like we did with RvP in SAF's last season, people here want Greenwood and Rashford to start ahead of him
Do you think buying a 36 year old, putting him on top of the wage list and change the way we play to adapt to him was a wise decision?
Three years of going in one direction......gone.
5 months going in a new direction....so far so good?
What abilities should we have tried to play into that we haven't?
He's had the 2nd most shots in the league, the 3rd highest npxG90, yet he sits in shared 10th in non penalty goals in the league. Behind players like Dennis, Son, ESR, Bernardo Silva, Antonio, Vardy and on par with players like Cornet, Gallagher, Saka, Mount and Maupey who have all received a lot less service.
How have we improved with him?
How is his 800+ goals, trophies, records relevant for us? He is slower and weaker, runs less, his finishing is not the same, his allround game is gone. He's nowhere near the Ronaldo who scored 1+ goal on average in Spain. Did you really believe he was the final piece of the puzzle for a top club, competing against Liverpool, City and Chelsea?
Well I know you did, because there was lot of capital letters, "!!!!!"-s, "siiiiiuuuuuu"-s and laughing smilies from you in the Ronaldo threads back in the end of August.
Your laughing smilies is on you and believe it or not that makes me sad.
No matter how his spell here ends, he will still be remembered and talked about as one of the all time greats.
You asked me to do a comparison with Ibra the other day, and that was a transfer I also wasn't a fan of. He was just 34 when we bought him, but was still a stop gap transfer. We ended 6th in the league that season (he was injured the entire second season when we got 2nd) and didn't play any of the semi's or the final in the EL-campain. His pressing numbers at 40 for Milan is still 2x what Ronaldo puts up here.