Cristiano Ronaldo needs to be more like Sebastien Haller or leave Man Utd
Neel Shelat
- Updated: 9 Jul 2022 17:31 BST
- 5 min read
Cristiano Ronaldo is dominating the football transfer news agenda as he attempts to force an exit from Manchester United amid the club’s lack of competitiveness.
The Portuguese has publicly asserted his desire to stay with the club, while new manager Erik ten Hag has also claimed that Ronaldo will play a part in his project and bring goals to the table. Many experts, however, believe that the former Ajax head coach would be better off starting fresh without Ronaldo, and that is what we will be digging deeper into here.
First of all, let us quickly go over Ronaldo’s 2021/22 season. A very cursory glance at his statistics indicates that he was important to Manchester United’s campaign as he contributed with 24 goals and three assists in 38 matches in all competitions.
Going one level further by taking a look at the Portugal international’s pizza chart, we see that while his goal-scoring numbers were impressive, the rest of his statistics look average at best, while his defensive numbers are almost nonexistent.
To be fair to Ronaldo, it should be noted that he played under different managers in very different set-ups at Man Utd last season, so that instability may have contributed to his inability to operate at a high level consistently.
On the flip-side, it also enabled him to play in his natural style relatively uninfluenced by tactical instructions, especially under Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and during the transition period after his departure. Therefore, analysing his season can give us some very good insight into what sort of a player he sees himself as.
Alongside Ronaldo, it would be wise to take a close look at Sebastien Haller’s season because he excelled as a striker under Ten Hag at Ajax, scoring 43 goals and assisting 13 in 58 games in all competitions. The ex-West Ham man did everything the Dutch manager could want his striker to do to a tee, so he is a great benchmark to compare Ronaldo with when assessing his suitability to the new Manchester United manager’s system.
The first thing to look at is both players’ touch-based heatmaps, as they give us an idea of where they like to operate on the pitch. Quite clearly, Ronaldo had a tendency to drift out to the left very often or even drop deep to get involved in his side’s play. In contrast, Haller effectively dwelled in and around the penalty area, which is where Ten Hag likes his striker to be.
The difference between the two is even more visible when looking at their pass receptions heatmap. Ronaldo drifted to the left and dropped deep even more frequently to get the ball, while Haller stayed firmly in the danger area and let the ball come to him.
Consequently, Haller’s shotmap looks like that of a disciplined striker who gets into great scoring positions in the box regularly through his movement, while Ronaldo’s is a little bit all over the place.
The obvious caveat to all this is that Haller played for an incredibly well-drilled Ajax side that had a clear system that they followed for every match, while Manchester United had a very tumultuous season in every sense of the word.
While Ronaldo can be excused for wanting to roam freely on the pitch when he had the freedom to do so, his inability to operate as a pure striker when Ralf Rangnick wanted him to do just that was concerning. That led to him scoring just one non-penalty goal in the league from the turn of the year until March - clearly a very concerning statistic.
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The biggest worry of all, though, is Ronaldo’s defensive contribution, or rather lack thereof. As his pizza chart showed, he did next to nothing when his side did not have the ball, which is something Ten Hag will not like at all given the fact that he wants his sides to press high up the pitch, requiring his front men to do a lot of hard work in the process.
One thing is certain – even if Ronaldo changes his ways and adds defensive input to his game, there is next to no chance he will be able to sustain it week in, week out at the age of 38 when his team plays twice each week. Under Rangnick, he was visibly displeased even when substituted off, but he will have to accept squad rotation if he is to fit into Ten Hag’s system properly.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that Ronaldo will have to change a lot about his style of play to fulfil the role of a striker under Ten Hag, which is not an easy ask for a player at the twilight of his career, regardless of how good he once was. If he fails to do that but does stick around, then this might lead to the Dutch manager being forced to tweak his system to incorporate a player - hardly the ideal scenario for anyone.
If Ronaldo really does want to leave Man Utd, the club should not stand in his way. Then, with his transfer fee and the lightened wage bill, they can reinvest in a striker that suits Ten Hag’s style of play, which would be the best outcome for the club from this saga.
