There’s no good case for bringing Cristiano Ronaldo to Chelsea

This drop in attacking returns for the team is despite their main creative outlet, Bruno Fernandes remaining a key part of proceedings. He created 20 big chances in the 2020-21 season and 15 in the following season. Fernandes’s goal return dropped by 8 goals the season Ronaldo arrived. In fact, Ronaldo replaced his countryman as the highest league goal scorer the season he came, scoring the 18 goals in 2021-22 that Fernandes scored in 2020-21.

“Well what does that have to do with Chelsea?” Everything. You still don’t see it? Juventus creates far more than CFC does, and their production still went down when Ronaldo joined them. Chelsea, as a team, does not create nearly as much as Juventus does. Fernandes created 35 big chances across two league seasons, creating the most clear cut chances of any Premier League player, only matched by Kevin De Bruyne. Chelsea’s highest big chance creator by comparison has created 23, over the two seasons. With a 15-big chance creator in the team, Manchester United still went from 73 league goals to 57. Ronaldo will do much worse individually and Chelsea would fair even worse should the Portuguese captain join the Blues.

Besides, Chelsea fans don’t get to talk about goals when they hardly create chances for the right people. Romelu Lukaku got five big chances for the West London club last season, Ronaldo got 22. Chelsea would be paying £500k per week for a player that would not score up to 10 league goals, if that.

Lastly, it is a bit ironic that many of the same fans that resisted and/or subsequently criticized the Lukaku signing after the fact, stated how useless and how much worse Lukaku made Chelsea because of his lack of pressing. Guess what? Ronaldo presses even less. Lukaku ranks as low as the 17th percentile for forwards in terms of pressures. This means that 83% of forwards press more than Lukaku. Ronaldo? 1st percentile. Yes, 99% of forwards press more than Ronaldo. Lukaku is a Mason Mount when it comes to pressing compared to Ronaldo. If you want to make the case that Ronaldo doesn’t need to press because he scores goals, don’t. The same case can be made for Lukaku.

Chelsea has already lost key centerbacks and will already be facing defensive uncertainties, adding Ronaldo to that will ensure that Chelsea doesn’t perform as well in the attacking department, and will also not perform as well in the defensive department because after moving all that’d need to be moved around, CFC will lose even more balance in the team. The Blues would have to pay a transfer fee for ‘CR7’ and pay him in excess of £500k per week from a budget they’d still need to pay new and existing players from. CFC‘s creation issues means Ronaldo is guaranteed to score significantly less than last season, and Ronaldo’s history in the past half decade means Chelsea will score less as a team. It’s not pros and cons, it’s cons and cons and cons and…you get the idea. So make one good case for Ronaldo joining, just one. I dare you to try.