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Cristiano Ronaldo has been voted the greatest player ever to play in the Premier League, ahead of players such as Arsenal great Thierry Henry and Manchester United stalwart Ryan Giggs.
A survey conducted by PA Sport found that people voted Ronaldo to be the best ever player to have taken part in the Premier League, with Frenchman Henry coming in second and wing wizard Giggs third on the list.
The results might come as a surprise to many, as Ronaldo spent only six seasons in the Premier League. He came to Old Trafford in 2003 as a teenager and left the club having won three Premier League titles, one FA Cup, two League Cups, one Champions League title and one FIFA Club World Cup title. He also won the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2009, when he left Manchester United to join Real Madrid.
Ronaldo got 24% of the votes
The poll was conducted among 1000 people and the choices offered were Ronaldo, Henry, Giggs and fellow luminaries Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp, Steven Gerrard, Alan Shearer, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira. About a quarter of those people voted for the “other/don't know” option. Among the remaining 747 people, Ronaldo was voted in by 177, approximately 24% of the total votes.
Henry received 18% of the votes while Ryan Giggs got 13% of the votes. The other players who were voted by a decent proportion of people were Eric Cantona, who got 12%, the same as Alan Shearer, while Roy Keane got 2% of votes, edging out his on-field adversary Patrick Vieira, who got 1% of the votes.
When regional patterns were checked, it was seen that Henry was most popular in East Anglia, Shearer in the north-east, Giggs and Cantona in Wales while Gerrard was top in Northern Ireland.
In terms of gender, Shearer got more female votes than male votes (16% when compared to 9%) while Henry suffered a little more when it came to the women, getting only 15% female votes as compared to 20% male votes. Ronaldo had the most votes when individual lists were considered, male and female.
