.
So you pick and choose who you consider a PL team now? And you aren’t even taking into consideration the few games Ronaldo has even been here what is it about 10 or so but he already has a collection of goals to criticise whereas Sancho a £75m attacker has the grand total of zero goals or assists.
stop defending him for the sake of it and reason the situation- playground arguements of “well he isn’t as bad as Sancho and HE cost xyz”...
Engage with the actual arguement. The game is all contextual. Ronaldo has those goals because why? Because the team has changed the way our forward line operates to accommodate him...can we agree? Can you honestly say we would have needed his last minute winners if we had set up differently to begin with? There is zero evidence to suggest he has made us a better team and huge evidence to the contrary.
The question is not whether or not Ronaldo has done what you would expect Ronaldo to do which is - score goals. He has.
The question is whether or not he is a luxury we can afford against top (Liverpool) and ever decent (Leicester/Atalanta)? Well drilled and organised teams function almost exclusively on staying compact out of possession. Not leaving gaps. In possession it’s about numerical advantage- whether building From the back or breaking. At its essence it’s that straightforward and simple. Different tactics sure but still the same basic idea.
now, Ronaldo is non existent out of possession. The stats are there for all to see. He is an 18 yard box player in possession. So essentially, we are playing with 10 men out of possession. Against sides we can dominate it isn’t an issue because of the majority of the time we have the ball. Against any side that can competently play out from the back...we will struggle...against top sides we get mauled. It is 100% due to trying to integrate a player who offers nothing out of possession.
This is evidenced bythe fact that even with our poor pressing last season we still looked solid enough- because the basics were there- compact shape and numerical equality. Ronaldo takes that away.