Neymar Has Dominated Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo But Not For Long

Neymar has statistically dominated Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but he may be unlikely to prolong his reign as Europe’s best player.

In his latest campaign, Neymar has topped the charts at Paris Saint-Germaine with impressive season statistics surpassing Messi and Ronaldo. However, things will be different now for the Brazilian as he suffers an unexpected injury.

Five months earlier, Neymar has set the record straight that beating Messi and Ronaldo was never on his priority list. He spent the entire summer injured with a metatarsal problem and saw an attempted Barcelona return fail horribly. PSG supporters were fired up over his actions and missing the opening five games of the club’s 2019/20 campaign made matters worse.

However, Neymar finally found his rhythm and started to live up to his world-record €222 million price tag. Since returning from a hamstring injury in November, the 28-year-old has been at his best form. He has scored 11 goals and dished 8 assists in his last 13 appearances across all competitions. Neymar’s efforts paid off as his overall statistics this season saw him as the best player in Europe.

Even PSG manager Thomas Tuchel was convinced that Neymar has no plans of taking a step back, Football Inside reported.

“Something has changed. His effort is fantastic now. I’m convinced that he wants to keep it up,” Tuchel confessed.

As much as Tuchel wants to keep Neymar’s impressive play, the PSG star will not join the squad for the team's upcoming league match at Nantes after suffering a rib injury.

It was confirmed that just days after he celebrated his 28th birthday with teammates at a Paris nightclub, Neymar incurred a rib injury which forced the team to rule him out for indefinite period of time, CNN reported.

Neymar’s idea of birthday bash was an occasion which Tuchel admitted was not “the best way” to celebrate as the team is in the middle of preparation for Tuesday's Ligue 1 encounter.

"Is it the best way to prepare for a match? No, clearly not. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. I always protect my players and I really love my team. With this party I accept that it is a bit difficult to protect the players but the context is not simply black or white," Tuchel pointed out.

"It is a shame because we are giving people the chance to speak badly of us. We need to adapt to the situation but I am not going to leave a player on the bench or at home because they went out and celebrated," Tuchel added.