Why Cristiano Ronaldo is no longer a feared player outside the box

Are Ronaldo’s skills outside the box on the decline?

‘Deluded’, or something of that sort, will be the first word that springs to the minds of people when they read the title of this article. And they can’t be blamed. After all, Cristiano Ronaldo is a player who guarantees you more than 50 goals every season like it was a walk in the park or composing tracks with an auto-tuned voice.

Someone who scores so many goals a season isn’t feared? Bollocks. Inside the box, there isn’t another player who inflicts fear like the Portuguese forward does. A leap that would put even a flea to shame, a shooting accuracy that rivals Robin Hood and a predatory instinct that makes tigers look like pussycats, Ronaldo is perhaps one of the most consistent players in the box since the Ferenc Puskas era.

Outside the box, however, lies a completely different story.

Fall of Ronaldo the winger

Within the walls of Old Trafford, a collective uproar of cheers created a vehement pandemonium whenever Ronaldo touched the ball. After receiving the ball near the half-way line, he blasted forward in a mazy and somewhat unorthodox fashion, leaving opponents reeling in his wake and bringing delight to the Manchester United enthusiasts.

Midfielders of the opposition team had to always be on their toes – a slight slip in concentration and Ronaldo would burn them to the ground. Not that it mattered, however, as more often than not, he succeeded in getting past them, leaving them clueless about how to rid the ball off him.

Cristiano Ronaldo was a much better dribbler during his time at Manchester United

For some United fans, he was better back in those days. The word ‘better’ might be an overstatement, but he was certainly more entertaining and useful from outside the box than he is now. The Portuguese star might not have been the devastating goalscorer he is now, but he could shake and disrupt an entire team from midfield to defence as opposed to just the defence currently.

The onset of this damning outside-the-box predicament was when Manuel Pellegrini preferred playing him more centrally. Since then, the Madeira man’s goal-scoring prowess improved beyond leaps and bounds, but it wasn’t without its drawbacks. As his predatory instincts in front of goal got better, his dribbling and control out of the box started to decline. He was scoring goals for fun, but it wasn’t in the same manner as before.

So far this season, he has made 1.4 dribbles and 1.4 key passes per game. In all of last season, this stat field read 1.5 key passes and 1.6 dribbles per game. This is a drastic fall when compared to his first season with the Galacticos where he made 3.1 key-passes and 3.2 dribbles in every game.

Stats, as the saying goes, don’t reveal the most important things. But this does indeed show the glaring repercussions of the former Sporting star’s evolution. These days, he can’t even go past a single player, let alone 3 or 4 players. No longer does a team close him down outside the box like they used to before, making him much less effective for the rest of his teammates.

Real Madrid struggle when Ronaldo doesn’t offer anything outside the box

Ronaldo has scored only twice from his last 85 free kicks – a conversion rate of less than 3%

Setpiece ability is another side of the Portuguese forward's game that has declined far more drastically than Nicolas Cage's acting career. His direct set-piece record is atrocious with just 2 goals in his last 85 attempts – a number that is alarming and costs Madrid more goals when the likes of James, Bale and even Sergio Ramos could do a better job than him.

The problem with this is very apparent. When Ronaldo doesn’t score, he has a very average game, something that borders on him being a liability. The matches against Granada and Atletico Madrid could be seen as the perfect testament to that claim.

With age, most forwards tone down and become more withdrawn and refine skills that help them lengthen their careers. There is lesser emphasis on explosiveness and more so on subtlety is the way to most forwards go about.

However, with Ronaldo, it is going the exact opposite way. After starting out as a fiery winger, he is now a tormenting forward who rarely misses from inside the box. Only time will tell whether this approach will benefit or backfire.

But one thing we can assess for now is that in order to get the best out him, the best service must be rendered to his feet. Because outside the box, he can do next to nothing.

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