Analysis: Wilfried Zaha might not be the new Ronaldo

Much hype has surrounded Wilfried Zaha since he burst onto the scene in the Championship while playing for Crystal Palace. Sir Alex Ferguson signed him for Manchester United for a big fee, £15m, and Roy Hodgson has capped the youngster twice for the England national team, perhaps to stave of the nation of his birth, the Ivory Coast.

However, for reasons unknown he has been out of favour at United under David Moyes and has made just two Premier League appearances for the Old Trafford club, which amount to a total of 30 minutes. This had led him to move, on loan, to Cardiff City where he is now playing under the guidance of former United hero Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

His arrival in Wales has led him to be compared to another former United great, Cristiano Ronaldo, by Solskjaer himself who told reporters.

“He is one of the best I have seen with the ball. He has quick feet and is brave like Cristiano and wants to go forward.

“He can grow up to become a proper player like Ronaldo if he wants.”

It is a bold claim, and a comparison that both honours and pressurises Zaha, but is it a fair comparison?

One area in which Zaha is found lacking when compared to Ronaldo is goalscoring. It would be a bit unfair to compare them this season due to the differences in game time but as Zaha is still only 21 years old, we can compare their respective careers to that point.

To date, Zaha has played 148 career club games and has scored just 18 goals, or one every 8.2 games. Up until the end of the 2005/06 season, at which point Ronaldo would have been 21, he had scored 32 goals in 168 games, one every 5.25 games.

While Ronaldo was more prolific, he was hardly as lethal as he is now and, in fact, the season after he notched 23 in all competitions, before subsequently going on to score over 40 throughout the following campaign. He certainly got better with age, which, from what we have seen of Zaha at Palace, appears to be happening in the case of the Englishman, too.

Zaha is so highly thought of by his new manager that he made his debut coming on as a first half substitute. As Cardiff found themselves losing to relegation rivals Norwich City and it was his introduction that changed the game in the home side’s favour.

His passing was excellent, with 92% of his 13 passes having found a team mate, which equates to just one misplaced pass throughout his 53 minutes on the pitch. These 12 completed passes also created two goal scoring chances and resulted in one assist.

He also won his only take on, though failed to take a single shot at the Norwich goal himself.

Again, it is hard to make a direct comparison between the two players given the discrepancy in the amount of game-time each has enjoyed this season, but Ronaldo’s pass success rate is just 79%.

Zaha certainly has potential, he would not have joined United for such a big fee or received two England caps before playing a Premier League game if he did not.

However, he is some way off Ronaldo’s level. Nor should he, at this moment, be considered the next Ronaldo, even in terms of potential.

Yet, the Real Madrid star is a special talent, a Ballon d’Or winner and is likely to go down as one of the game’s all time greats.

That is not to say that Zaha could not achieve that status, though. As mentioned above, he has potential and a lot of it, but given the amount of game-time and goals scored or assisted by each player at this stage in their respective careers, it appears that Solskjaer may have been just a tad hyperbolic in praising his new signing.