Man Utd finally have a guarantee of goals again with Cristiano Ronaldo

Manchester United have done something that no one ever has before by agreeing to pay up to £19.7m for a 36-year-old. But Cristiano Ronaldo is no ordinary 36-year-old, bringing guaranteed goals and a game-changing X-factor to an already very talented squad.

Even at 36, going on 37, Ronaldo remains one of the best players in the world.

His longevity knows no limits and he was Euro 2020 joint top scorer this summer, even though Portugal were knocked out surprisingly early at the last 16 stage.

For Ronaldo, a poor or disappointing season is still utterly outstanding by anyone else’s standards. In his least prolific campaign since he left United all those years ago in 2009, he scored 28 times in all competitions for Juventus in 2018/19 and 21 times in Serie A.

For comparison’s sake, United’s top scorer in a single season in the eight years since Sir Alex Ferguson is also 28 – jointly held by Bruno Fernandes last season and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2016/17.

In every other season, Ronaldo has scored at least 33 goals every time. No United player has scored 30 goals in a single season across all competitions since Robin van Persie in 2012/13. Similarly, Van Persie is also the last United player to score at least 20 goals in a league season.

Ronaldo’s lowest league tally was the 21 for Juve in 2018/19, as mentioned. But he has otherwise scored at least 25 league goals in every league season for the past 12 years.

The Portuguese icon is no longer at his Real Madrid peak between 2010 and 2016, but he was actually still more prolific in his two most seasons at Juventus than he was in his final two years in Spain. So it isn’t as though he is on a consistently downward trajectory either.

No longer the flying winger fans at Old Trafford once knew, Ronaldo will instantly be a step up for United, not least because his incredible fitness means he can play most games, even at his age.

This is someone who has already played over 1,000 career games at club and international level since 2002 because he is so rarely injured. He hasn’t played fewer than 40 clubs per season since 2009/10 when he first joined Real Madrid and appeared 133 times for Juve in just three seasons.

United haven’t had the kind of reliability and consistency that Ronaldo delivers for a long time.

Edinson Cavani became a cult favourite last season but it took him a while to get going in terms of fitness. He has suffered a number of injuries in recent years, which is completely normal for older players...older players who aren’t Ronaldo.

Anthony Martial, meanwhile, has proven to be too unreliable for a United side with ambitions of returning to the pinnacle of English and European football. Both Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood are still developing and will learn so much from Ronaldo.

Even if he plays on for a few years, it is only natural that Ronaldo is only ever going to be a short-term asset for United because of his age. But what a hell of an asset he is.

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