Cristiano Ronaldo out of time but Man United superstar continues to defy logic

The Portuguese struck his 700th club goal despite being moved to the periphery of United’s plans under Erik ten Hag

He may now be United’s third-choice striker, but Ronaldo is still capable of brilliance (AFP via Getty Images)

It is just a number but what a number. Seven hundred club goals. More than the Brazilian Ronaldo and Marco van Basten mustered between them. More than the trio of Gary Lineker, Bobby Charlton and Paolo Rossi got when their efforts were combined. Seven hundred.

Two decades and two days since he first scored for Sporting Lisbon against Moreirense, Cristiano Ronaldo became the inaugural member of the 700 club in a manner that felt familiar. Few have cut in from the left wing with such regularity and such potency. The driving run, the drilled finish, the sheer professionalism about the process of scoring goals: it was Ronaldo in a nutshell.

He has averaged 35 a year for his clubs – even excluding his century of international goals – every year for 20 years, even though he was a show pony on the wing for the first few. Since he became more single-minded about the pursuit of scoring, in 2006, he has averaged over 40 a season. He averaged 50 every year for Real Madrid, and there were nine seasons at the Bernabeu. Only two of those 700 have come for Erik ten Hag but the Manchester United manager was swift to appreciate the feat. “When you score 700 goals, it's a huge performance, I'm really happy for him. I congratulate him on that performance,” he said.

Frank Lampard specialised in scoring goals. He got a record total for Chelsea. He played until he was 38 and struck 274 times in club football. It is still 426 fewer than Ronaldo. “It is outstanding,” said the Everton manager. “He is one of the greatest players to have graced the game.” It was Lampard, in his generous tribute, who raised the issue of Lionel Messi. “The numbers they have racked up, abnormal numbers have become normal,” he said.

But perhaps Bruno Fernandes put it best. “It is tough still counting goals for Ronaldo because every week seems like a new record,” said his compatriot. Maybe it takes a selfishness to accumulate so many, to demand the free kicks and penalties, to have an absurdly low body-fat percentage; the puppy fat he wore when he first scored is long shed. He has tried to halt the ageing process, while his enduring hunger is for goals.

Alex Iwobi curls home from long range (Reuters)

As he sought his 701st, there was a moment in the second half when Seamus Coleman cleared a cross from Marcus Rashford. If that was unexceptional, the pertinent part was that Ronaldo had sprinted from his own half, knees pumping, past a host of players to become the furthest man forward in case Coleman missed it. He was running with a point to prove but then perhaps he always has, even if it was to win his private battle with Messi, to accumulate ever more records, to take his goalscoring into new realms; not since Vasco da Gama has a Portuguese spent so much time in previously uncharted territory.

And yet he has been confined to terrain he long hated this season: the bench, where he spent the entirety of a Manchester derby. Ronaldo has been at his lowest ebb since his formative days. He may be United’s third-choice striker. He has been dropped and demoted, the superstar substitute. He is in decline and the club he powered to rare heights in 2008 had their worst season for 32 years when he returned. He is a man out of time, the reluctant presser. He is the legend who went unwanted in the summer transfer market.

And yet, even amid the most chastening spell of his career, there are moments where he feels timeless. Send Ronaldo through on goal against an Everton team with the best defensive record in the Premier League and he scores. Go back to March and a hat-trick against Tottenham was another reminder that brilliant finishing and force of personality can be enough. It isn’t always: it is possible to marvel at Ronaldo’s statistics and impact over the years and yet feel it is time to fast-track the future, to argue that, blinded by stardust, United erred in bringing him back and that Ten Hag is right to sideline him. After all, he is 18 goals behind Erling Haaland now, neither the best striker in Manchester nor, given the differing attributes of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, probably the right fit for United.

But they are separate issues. Ronaldo may play until he is 40 – he could even feel the 2022 World Cup will not be his last – but he and United might be headed for divorce. That can permit a broader reflection of his efforts. The immediacy can obscure the enormity of anything. Ronaldo has scored at Goodison Park in 2005 and 2022; he has spanned eras, playing against Everton teams featuring Nigel Martyn and Anthony Gordon. His first goal for Sporting is closer in time to Hamburg winning the European Cup, Aston Villa lifting the European Super Cup and Bob Paisley managing Liverpool than to the current day.

Cristiano Ronaldo fires Manchester United ahead (Action Images via Reuters)

He is a historic figure in other ways. He is the record scorer in the history of Real Madrid and Portugal, the Champions League and international football. Include his Portugal goals and he has 817. He is 38 in February. Logically even he cannot reach 1,000. But logic alone would never have suggested football’s most famous No 7 would have got 700 goals in the club game alone.