Never said he was the first reason. But he was definitely a reason. And you can argue his goal output wasn’t enough to make up for all the other stuff, and his goal output wasn’t all that amazing anyways. He’s still the GOAT for me and I love the guy to death. I just don’t want him to be around for another year so every PC with ETH is gonna be about “how do you get the best out of Ronaldo?”
It’s just that some see the difference on how a team has to play when Peter Crouch is their striker compared to when Firmino is a striker.
The fact is that Cavani and Martial play a different style of football to Ronaldo.
Ronaldo is a better striker - but we became a team that tried to create for a central striker in comparison to what we were before Ronaldo arrived - we were creating for our wider forwards like Greenwood oRashford on the counter. Ronaldo is not a counter player at the age of 38.
Whenever people bring up the fact that Ronaldo changed how we as a team played - people act like we have a problem with the player.
Yes he became our best goal scorer but this was again not how we played - our central striker was the least likely to score compared to our wider forwards.
Then there is Bruno Fernandez that has stats and Data to show that Ronaldo took the spaces and areas that Bruno would normally be to score goals or assist. He is another player who was our main attacker and suddenly that changed too no matter how overrated people find him to be after this season.
Ive got no problem to Ronaldo and Value his 20 goals - but that 20 goals came from a different type of football in comparison to the way the rest of the team played before his arrival.
Some people just don’t see it and assume that we have a problem with Ronaldo.
The way we would have to play as a team to accommodate Lewandowski is different to a team that accommodates Benzema. Different strikers needs different teams and tactics. Ronaldo changed ours.