5 Reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo is being written off too early

1.Champions League Form and positional impact

Ronaldo and the Champions League - a special love story

We already discussed the fact that the real worry will start when Ronaldo is off-colour consistently for at least two months. It seems Real's problems in the La Liga and indeed in the Champions League have not hindered Ronaldo from managing 6 goals in 4 matches.

Statistically speaking Ronaldo has averaged 7.48 in the La Liga before the Girona game according to Whoscored.com. In the Champions League, Ronaldo scored a double against an in-form Dortmund away from home and has scored in both fixtures against Tottenham.

That is not a sign of a player who is past his peak. In many ways, Ronaldo has peaked, fallen off and peaked again but the falling off was washed away from plain sight by him morphing into a different player. He no longer plays to his old strengths of pace, charging down the wings and being the central creating force of his team.

Instead, he works in the spaces between defenders, dragging them out of position before capitalizing on errors and positioning himself in the right places to score. His assists ratio is by and large the same as last season 0.25 to 0.30 per game.

In terms of key passes - Ronaldo has not exactly declined. In the danger of being excessively repetitive, his role has been altered - 1.3 key passes a game is not bad when you realise crosses and through balls accounted for many chances created. With Ronaldo drifting further inside the pitch and into a more central area, he does not have to provide much any more.

To compare - Aguero managed 1.2 key passes on average in his career. Griezmann, who arguably plays a similar role manages 1.2 key passes as well. Therefore keeping his Champions League performances as a barometer, one can safely argue that Ronaldo is more than capable of doing his job well at the moment.

The obituaries of his demise at the top of the game will soon be forgotten