Cristiano Ronaldo has responded to criticism of his domestic goal return.
The Real Madrid forward netted a consolation goal for his side with just 10 minutes remaining in Wednesday’s heavy defeat to Spurs at Wembley.
Ronaldo is scoring for fun in the Champions League, having found the net on six occasions in European competition so far this season, but the 32-year-old is not enjoying anything resembling that kind of form in La Liga.
The reigning Ballon d’Or holder has just one goal to his name in six league appearances and, unfortunately for Ronaldo, he has the worst conversion rate of all goalscorers in Europe’s top five leagues.
Real currently find themselves in third place in La Liga following Sunday’s shock defeat to the recently promoted Girona and are eight points off leaders Barcelona in the table.
Cristiano Ronaldo: Of all goalscorers in Europe's top 5 leagues this season, Ronaldo has the worst conversion rate (2.5%) pic.twitter.com/ZtLiJyYlZ9
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) October 29, 2017
Just days after manager Zinedine Zidane was named best coach of the year at the annual Fifa awards, the Real manager currently finds himself under slight but unignorable pressure.
Frankly put, things will have to improve and if ‘Los Blancos’ are to pose a challenge to Barcelona in La Liga then the talismanic Ronaldo will have to start finishing off more chances.
Following Wednesday’s defeat in London, Ronaldo was asked about his league struggles and told his critics exactly what to do.
“I’m super calm. Today, having a good performance doesn’t count for you. All that counts is goals, goals, goals,” Ronaldo said.
“My stats, I’m not going to talk about it, you go to Google, ‘Cristiano Ronaldo goals’ and there they are, all of them. That doesn’t concern me at all.”
The Portugal international is favourite to retain his Ballon d’Or crown when this year’s winner is announced next month and, despite the poor run of form, Ronaldo remains hopeful things will turn around sooner rather than later for Real.
“Things are bad because we have lost and are used to winning,” Ronaldo added. “It’s a bad patch that we want to change and I’m sure we will change it.
“This is just the beginning of the season, we still have a lot of time to improve.”
