It hasn’t been the best start to 2017 for the face of Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo. Coming off his Ballon D’Or triumph and winning the FIFA Male Player of the Year Award, Ronaldo has dropped into a January slump, however, when taking a close look at the past performances from CR7, it’s nothing new and it’s nothing to worry about.
The Portuguese stud is undoubtedly one of the best finishers in front of goal in Europe currently, and maybe even in the world all time. And despite his breathtaking free kicks, cheeky penalties, and stunning foot skills, the seemingly super human Ronaldo has his moments that bring his god like perception back down to Earth. And shockingly, that dip in performance comes the first month of the year, January.
Despite a stellar January in the 2012-2013 season where Ronaldo netted seven goals in just four games, the lack of goal scoring from CR7 has been a regular occurrence since the 2009-2010 season, where he suffered an ankle injury and wasn’t able to play for the entire first month of 2010.
Ronaldo while having a gaudy 382 goals in 370 matches for Real Madrid in his career, suffers an astounding drop in his usual goals to game ratio with a drop of 1.03 goals a game every other month of the season but in January scores just 0.6 goals a game.
FanSided
The possible explanation for as to why Ronaldo suffers this dip in goal output might be because of the time off prior to the turn of the new year.
Prior to January of this season following the FIFA Club World Cup, Ronaldo took two weeks off to rest up and stay healthy for hopefully the remainder of the season. In the first game of January, manager Zinedine Zidane sat Ronaldo to give him even more rest prior to slog of the second half of the season.
While this is an understandable move by Zidane, it is interesting to see the coach hold a star out for rest despite the player already having about two weeks off from matches to rehab and rest.
In this year specifically, Ronaldo has scored twice in three games of action but he hasn’t looked like himself to start the new year. With a great goal against Sevilla in his first action of the season, he put in a great header. In the loss at home to Celta Vigo in the Copa Del Rey, Ronaldo scored from the spot but other than these two instances, CR7 has failed to make any real noticeable impact in the attacking third.
Despite this current slump and it’s regular occurrence in the past, Madrid fans shouldn’t worry too much about their star as come February, CR7 should be back in his usual god like form.