The Ronaldo statistic that absolutely embarrasses Newcastle, West Brom and more

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Premier League sides have been put in the shadow of one footballer, albeit a phenomenal one.

After his five-goal haul against Granada on Sunday afternoon, Cristiano Ronaldo’s La Liga goal tally for the season moved up to 36.

A fine achievement from a fine athlete – who will yet go onto to net many more and won’t be the only one (Lionel Messi, of course)…

But, regardless of his quality, no one man should be scoring more goals than whole teams across a campaign. And yet that’s exactly the case – one that will embarrass a number of Premier League sides this term.

Indeed, as Opta stats show, nine whole clubs have scored less than Ronaldo himself this season on English shores. Queens Park Rangers and Stoke City are on 35, while Newcastle United have only netted 33 times. Hull, Leicester, West Brom, Burnley, Sunderland and Aston Villa complete the list.

At least QPR netted four this weekend (though still less than the Real Madrid star) as West Brom floundered, while Newcastle didn’t look like getting near the back of the net against Sunderland, who at least had Jermain Defoe to hit the back of the net for them.

Should whole clubs be ashamed of scoring less than the Ballon d’Or winner this season? Possibly not. Ronaldo, after all, is a phenomenon.

But it’s still a damning indictment of the campaigns of the likes of Newcastle, West Brom and more. Villa, meanwhile, could well have half as many goals as the Portuguese a couple of weeks down the line…