Cristiano Ronaldo's Manchester United Goal Stat Still Better Than Most Strikers' Now

Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal stat with Manchester United revealed that he is still way ahead of the modern day goal scorers.

At 35 years old, Ronaldo has really nothing to prove as he has alredy been renowned for his impeccable goal scoring ability. Boasting more than 700 goals over the course of his career, “CR7” has cemented his name in the greatest of all time list.

Manchester Evening News recently dived deeper in Ronaldo’s impressive goal scoring performances in England’s top-flight. During his time with Old Trafford, Ronaldo bagged a total of 118 goals, a remarkable tally that pundits think doesn't really receive the credit it deserves.

But the said tally isn’t the most notable record Ronaldo registered in United. Apparently, Ronaldo has created the most number of goal opportunities at the time. In fact, even to this day, Ronaldo’s shot frequency is still way ahead than most goal scorers in Premier League. In simpler terms, The Portuguese icon has had an innate ability to generate shots that only few players can perfect.

To put this into context, this season, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah is currently shooting more than any other player with nearly 3.5 attempts for every 90 minutes of playing time. Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Raul Jimenez then places second, ahead of Marcus Rashford and Riyad Mahrez, who all have an average of around 3 goals per game.

Surprisingly, none of the mentioned above came close to Ronaldo who averaged an incredible 5.97 shots per game in the 2006-07 season. He slightly declined to 5.7 the following year. But before his departure to Real Madrid, Ronaldo was a red-hot striker with 5.93 shots per game. Overall, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner has taken over 5.5 shots per game over the duration of three consecutive campaigns.

The only two players who came close were Liverpool's Luis Suarez in 2013-14 season with 5.5 and 5.7 the year before, and Harry Kane who managed to record 5.4 per game in 2017-18 season.

Meanwhile, Manchester United youngster Mason Greenwood, who is only on his first full season in Old Trafford, was able to exceed Ronaldo’s goal stat during his first two seasons in England’s top-flight.

Ronaldo did not reach double figures in goals scored for United until his third season where he tallied a total of 12 goals. Greenwood on the other hand, already has 14 goals under his name. Pundits believe that prior to the lockdown, it was very realistically expected that the 18-year-old could reach a 20-goal tally before the season ended.