By The Numbers: Cristiano Ronaldo is in decline and we can prove it

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Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo is about to win his fifth Ballon d’Or, but his form this season indicates a steep decline. Is that the case?

In La Liga Cristiano Ronaldo has only scored once in 7 games despite taking 37 shots. But he’s always been a high volume shooter, right? Those numbers aren’t so new?

Well looking at his form at this point, the middle of November after the international break, in each of the last six La Liga seasons reveals something quite interesting.

*Cristiano’s performance in this metric was a league-high

Thanks to Cristiano’s style, predicated enormously on goalscoring, it’s easy to measure his influence based on the goals he scores and the efficiency with which he scores them. Thus his first three seasons above are relentlessly productive, but then beginning with 2015/16 his numbers begin to decline. Notably; he turned 30 in February 2015.

The decline has been getting worse each season to the point where, in 2016/17 Cristiano was no longer the dynamic terror he had once been. Instead he was a largely meek threat who was comfortably handled by opponents.

Alright, we now know this was a strategic decision from Zinedine Zidane, allowing his form to dip in the early months so he may be peak physical condition come the run-in. And as it worked spectacularly for Madrid with Cristiano powering them to the European Double, the dip could be taken as an aberration, right?

Well, no. Because there was a similar drop-off in 2015/16, which occurred before Zidane took charge. And then there’s this season’s woes where he has taken 37 shots to score just one goal. His shot conversion is 3%. Three. Percent. 68 players have bagged more goals than him this season, sixty eight!

“But the Champions League!” many will cry, and yes, Cristiano has 6 goals in 4 games in the Champions League this season. Impressive, sure, but two of those goals were penalties and 3 of the remaining 4 were simple tap-ins where he only had to fire home from close range.

And sure, they all count, but the fact that only 1 of his 6 goals required any genuine excellence is telling, especially as he was so impotent for the vast majority of Madrid’s matches against Spurs when they so needed his potent brilliance (15 of his 29 shots in the competition came against Spurs).

There is still a glimmer of genius in his play, and in time he may spark to life again as he did last season (a run of form which is increasingly looking like a mere purple patch, rather than a product of relentless excellence), but there can be no denying it now; what began slowly when he turned 30 is now gathering speed at 32, and Cristiano Ronaldo is a player on a steep decline.