Merson: Manchester is better without Ronaldo. The stats speak clearly

British football expert Merson, who works for Sky Sports, sees Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the reasons for the team’s failure.

“Manchester United would have played much better if they hadn’t had Cristino Ronaldo in their squad.”

That’s how British football expert and former Arsenal player Paul Merson’s column can be summed up in a nutshell. Is he right? Let’s try to look at it through the lens of statistics.

A graphic published by Sky Sports on its website speaks clearly in Merson’s favour. The left column records the team’s statistics in the league games of the current season involving Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo. He has appeared in eight championship matches for the Red Devils . In the right-hand column, you can see the dates of the games he did not play in. Manchester United played four such matches.

With Ronaldo, Manchester United managed to score an average of 1.5 goals per game. Without him, it was two.

With the Portuguese in the lineup, the team received an average of 2.3 goals, without him on the pitch 0.8 goals.

When Cristiano Ronaldo played for the Red Devils , the team won 37.5% of the matches. On the other hand, when he was on the bench or out of the nomination, Manchester United had a success percentage of 50%.

The last statistic mentioned is then the average number of points scored per game – with Cristiano Ronaldo on the pitch 1.1 points, without him two equal.

Merson concluded his column by saying.

Source: Sky Sports