The factors behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal drought

The Portuguese star has felt the effects of a disrupted preseason and has made his worst statistical start to a season since joining Real Madrid.

ANDREA COMAS

Mario de la Riva

Update: Oct 25th, 2016 16:40 EDT

All is not right for Cristiano Ronaldo in front of goal. Real Madrid’s star man hasn’t scored in front of the Santiago Bernabéu crowd in over a month and is going through one of the worst dry patches of his career.

The stats don’t lie. Nine games in, Cristiano has made his worst start to a season at Real Madrid. He’s having trouble scoring goals (averaging almost ten attempts per goal); meanwhile the team has learned to get by without him.

Injury problems

The knee injury he sustained during the Euro 2016 final completely disrupted his preseason. He joined up with the squad on the 10th August but didn’t train with a ball for another ten days. Even then he would often conduct his own training sessions away from his teammates. He didn’t make his first appearance with the rest of the BBC until September, after the first international break.

The factors behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal drought — Cristiano was forced off during the Euro 2016 after injuring his knee in a challenge with Dimitri Payet

A forced competitive ‘preseason’

Cristiano’s ‘preseason’ was unconventional. Instead of playing friendlies, which help players to build up their fitness for the new season, he played competitive games without a warm-up. Though Zidane often spoke of limiting his playing time as he regained full fitness, Cristiano played the full 90 minutes against former side Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League and over an hour of the LaLiga clash with Osasuna.

A bout of flu kept him out of Real Madrid’s trip to Espanyol and since then has been rested only in the final stages of the draw with Las Palmas. Zidane is confident that he’ll regain his best form soon and will give him time. “He’s close. It’s hard in football but we just need to be patient,” he said following his side’s 2-1 win over Athletic at the weekend.

In search of lost effectiveness

The most worrying statistic is that Cristiano’s aim is off. This season he’s averaged a goal every ten attempts. His chance conversion rate (9.30%) looks even worse if we just look at LaLiga fixtures. In the league he’s scored just twice from 29 attempts, a conversion rate of 6.9%. He’s never had so much trouble. In his worst season on record at Real Madrid – his first, incidentally – he needed less than 6 attempts to score, a conversion rate of 16.8%.

The team has survived without his goals, and one positive to take is that three of his goals have been decisive. His goal against Osasuna opened the scoring. Then he hit the equaliser in the dying moments against Sporting before also netting in the 2-2 draw against Dortmund. Only against Betis was his goal ultimately inconsequential to the final outcome (6-1).

Cristiano Ronaldo in front of goal

LALIGA LALIGA + CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Season Attempts Goals Conversion Att/goal Attempts Goals Conversion Att/goal 2016-2017 29 2 6.90% 14.50 43 4 9.30% 10.75 2015-2016 190 35 18.42% 5.43 256 51 19.92% 5.02 2014-2015 182 48 26.37% 3.79 229 58 25.33% 3.95 2013-2014 172 31 18.02% 5.55 233 48 20.60% 4.85 2012-2013 181 34 18.78% 5.32 238 46 19.33% 5.17 2011-2012 206 46 22.33% 4.48 264 56 21.21% 4.71 2010-2011 190 40 21.05% 4.75 243 46 18.93% 5.28 2009-2010 170 26 15.29% 6.54 196 33 16.84% 5.94 Source: OPTA. 2016-17 statistics correspond to the season so far.

A lack of confidence

Scoring goals is all about confidence and this dry spell is taking its toll on Cristiano. He missed a one-on-one with Iraizoz in the final stages of the win over Athletic, much to the frustration of Toni Kroos and Álvaro Morata who were in excellent positions. His frustration shows. One need only look at his reaction to Morata’s goal (we'll let you be the judge of his intentions).