Cristiano Ronaldo wants Champions League football, and the 37-year-old won’t get it at Manchester United next season. Look, that’s a scientific fact. So after just one season back at Old Trafford, he has told the club to sell him.
What we saw from Ronaldo last term would help any club in need of a clinical finisher. He put away 24 goals in 38 appearances across all competitions, hardly a bad return for a player in a struggling squad. Many of those strikes were memorable: the brace on his home return, the stoppage time near-post smash against Villarreal, the late winner against Atalanta, the go-ahead free kick against Norwich City.
There is still gas left in the tank, even if it is at the expense of a well-rounded pressing game.
Where should Ronaldo go if wants the best chance at crafting a positive end-of-career narrative? Goals. He loves goals. He wants more and more goals.
So, we asked renowned statistician Statman Dave to pick through the numbers and share his perspective.
“First up, Cristiano Ronaldo needs a lot of expected goals created for him,” Dave says. “A lot of chances to put the ball in the back of the net. Ronaldo, over the course of his career, has consistently overperformed his expected goals (a measure of how often a player is supposed to score based upon chance quality).
“Take the 2019-20 season with Juventus, for instance. He had 26.7 xG, but Ronaldo scored 31 goals. Last season at Manchester United, he had around 16.5 xG over the Premier League season, but scored 18 goals.
“The big problem of course, was Manchester United and their lack of consistent chance creators in the side. Looking at their total expected goals over the season, they were 32nd in Europe’s top five leagues.”
Right, that doesn’t sound very good. Nor did it look good in practice, as the club tumbled to a sixth-place finish that saw them wind up closer to the relegation zone than they did to champions Manchester City.
Where would Ronaldo get more opportunities created for him? Who could make his above average finishing ability shine?
“Bayern Munich will be the perfect place for Ronaldo next season in terms of the most goals for him to score,” Dave says. “They were third on the [expected goals] list in Europe under Julian Nagelsmann.
“Not only do Bayern Munich attack, attack, attack, scoring 97 goals last season in the Bundesliga, but there’s a lot of chance creation within the side when you’re looking at players like Alphonso Davies, Thomas Muller, Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman.
“There’s a lot of players in there capable of getting the ball in the box, and headers are key in the Portuguese superstar’s game. But as well, when you look at players that massively overperform their expected goals in Europe, Nagelsmann’s strikers have always done that.”
Bayern Munich may be forced to sell an unhappy Robert Lewandowski, which would make Ronaldo a natural line-up fit at Allianz Arena.
Dave notes that Nagelsmann’s tactical set-up, which often resembles a 3-2-4-1 formation, lends itself to a striker with Ronaldo’s skill set.
“That’s five attackers in the final third, all looking to get into the box. More players in the box means more chances for Ronaldo.” Dave concludes. “Not only will Bayern Munich provide a lot of expected goals for Ronaldo to put into the back of the net, but there’ll also be bodies in the penalty area, giving him lots of one-v-one situations.
“Cristiano Ronaldo can still massively thrive under those conditions.”