Injuries aside, was Peak Neymar better than any non-Messi player this era?

Sexy Beast · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

The graphs have a sufficient sample size. Now you are arguing against hard evidence just because it does not suit you.

A player can be average inside the box, and outstanding in the perimeter outside the box relative to the average. If that player only takes shots inside the box, he will not outperform xG - in that theoretical scenario goals will equal xG. On the other hand, if that same player only takes shots in the perimeter where he outperforms the average, his goal total will be higher than the xG total - so he will outperform xG. That is incredibly obvious.
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Griezmann has zero for 0.6something xG.. perhaps only Messi has enough shots which is why his graph is the smoothest and still not even for Messi that is true for that spike towards the right.

Graphs in theory would have to be smooth curves or lines without much variance across different levels of difficulty.

Why would player not shot from the places in which he is the best?

Neymar is literally one of the greatest dribblers in history, how exactly would he have a problem creating a shoting opportunity for himself from a place in or outside of the box where he feels the most comfortable?

How exactly the right winger interferes with shot selection of a left winger?

How anyone ever interferes with shot selection of an other player?

Why would Neymar be terrible from the certain level of difficulty and how does exactly that reflects positively on Neymar or plays into the idea that his peak was greater than Messis at the time?

If anything youve just shown another graph demonstrating absolutely elite finishing abilities of the top 2 player ever.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

Sexy Beast said: ↑

Griezmann has zero for 0.6something xG.. perhaps only Messi has enough shots which is why his graph is the smoothest and still not even for Messi that is true for that spike towards the right.

Graphs in theory would have to be smooth curves or lines without much variance across different levels of difficulty.

Why would player not shot from the places in which he is the best?

Neymar is literally one of the greatest dribblers in history, how exactly would he have a problem creating a shoting opportunity for himself from a place in or outside of the box where he feels the most comfortable?

How exactly the right winger interferes with shot selection of a left winger?

How anyone ever interferes with shot selection of an other player?

Why would Neymar be terrible from the certain level of difficulty and how does exactly that reflects positively on Neymar or plays into the idea that his peak was greater than Messis at the time?

If anything youve just shown another graph demonstrating absolutely elite finishing abilities of the top 2 player ever.
Click to expand...

The answers to your questions are fairly obvious. There is absolutely no reason you should expect a smooth curve.
Those graphs are produced by a statistician. I trust this person knows a thing or two about sampling that you don't.
Obviously when a team sets up an attack, the dynamic of the attack changes based on the players there. If Messi is the primary finisher, the play will be orchestrated more often than not to provide Messi with the highest quality chances. Tactics are different as are zones where balls are received and shot from.
Like you did not even take the time to think this through.
Obviously, Messi is a superior finisher to Neymar. That Neymar was playing at a higher level to Messi is because of other qualities he provided. There is no world Neymar was ever a better finisher than Messi.
You write, but you don't take the time to think.

lessthanjake · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

I think it is self-explanatory that Neymar was provided better opportunities as the focal point on the team, which he would not get being relegated to the left side and second fiddle to Messi.
I have no access or interest in the data - maybe you do and in which case you could calculate xG/shot as a very rudimentary indicator.
You can establish the same pattern with Benzema when Cristiano left. And you can also look at what happened with Lewandowski when he changed teams.
That Neymar was provided higher goal-scoring opportunities relative to when Messi was playing is obviously a more probable and plausible hypothesis than he just magically happened to be much better for the stretch of games that Messi didn't play - one stretches the imagination and probability - it would be oddest, most convenient of coincidences - the sort of coincidence that would only exist to suit a biased opinion rather than an honest observer. Finally, the graph cearly shows that Neymar performs poorly for avg difficulty shots. He most likely ends up taking more of those when Messi plays.
FYI - the same phenomenon can be observed with Messi circa 2019 when Barca's shot creating capacity dipped. His xG "overperformance" tanked because he was taking harder shots.
Finally, xG models are obviously extremely rudimentary and are based on still photos of very basic data. There is no input on defender vector/velocity, teammate off-ball runs, and such. It stands to reason that in some cases xG is overestimated, and two chances assigned identical probabilities will likely have significant variance. In fact, most models have enough inter-model variance that the probabilities shift by 15-20percent sometimes. Which is significant.
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My whole point is that is really wouldn’t be an “odd” coincidence at all, because it’s just 40 shots and virtually anything can happen in just 40 shots. If your entire argument is based on a evidence-free inference that there’s no way that the results of 40 shots could differ substantially from Neymar’s norm unless it’s somehow specifically a result of Messi being gone, then your argument is just based on nothing and completely ignores the obvious explanation staring you in the face.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

Sexy Beast said: ↑

Griezmann has zero for 0.6something xG.. perhaps only Messi has enough shots which is why his graph is the smoothest and still not even for Messi that is true for that spike towards the right.

Graphs in theory would have to be smooth curves or lines without much variance across different levels of difficulty.

Why would player not shot from the places in which he is the best?

Neymar is literally one of the greatest dribblers in history, how exactly would he have a problem creating a shoting opportunity for himself from a place in or outside of the box where he feels the most comfortable?

How exactly the right winger interferes with shot selection of a left winger?

How anyone ever interferes with shot selection of an other player?

Why would Neymar be terrible from the certain level of difficulty and how does exactly that reflects positively on Neymar or plays into the idea that his peak was greater than Messis at the time?

If anything youve just shown another graph demonstrating absolutely elite finishing abilities of the top 2 player ever.
Click to expand...

As you can see here, Neymar and Messi have different shot types:
https://soccermatics.medium.com/the-geometry-of-shooting-ae7a67fdf760
If Messi doesn't play, Neymar would be taking more central shots that he is relatively more comfortable finishing.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

My whole point is that is really wouldn’t be an “odd” coincidence at all, because it’s just 40 shots and virtually anything can happen in just 40 shots. If your entire argument is based on a evidence-free inference that there’s no way that the results of 40 shots could differ massively from Neymar’s norm unless it’s somehow specifically a result of Messi being gone, then your argument is just based on nothing and completely ignores the obvious explanation staring you in the face.
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Yes, Neymar happens to have better finishing for the EXACT stretch Messi doesn't play. He just happens to hit good finishing form at the exact intersection of Messi's absence.
That is TOTALLY a more plausible and probable scenario than Neymar simply having better shot-taking opportunities and goal-scoring situations.
Go figure.
I won't take this argument further because at this point you argue to argue with zero interest for the truth and absolutely no credibility.
\

lessthanjake · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

The answers to your questions are fairly obvious. There is absolutely no reason you should expect a smooth curve.
Those graphs are produced by a statistician. I trust this person knows a thing or two about sampling that you don't.
Obviously when a team sets up an attack, the dynamic of the attack changes based on the players there. If Messi is the primary finisher, the play will be orchestrated more often than not to provide Messi with the highest quality chances. Tactics are different as are zones where balls are received and shot from.
Like you did not even take the time to think this through.
Obviously, Messi is a superior finisher to Neymar. That Neymar was playing at a higher level to Messi is because of other qualities he provided. There is no world Neymar was ever a better finisher than Messi.
You write, but you don't take the time to think.
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By the way, I think it’s probably true that the charts don’t really have enough data, particularly at the very high end. Shots with high xG are very uncommon, and there’s not a ton of shots in the data set (particularly for the guys with fewer shots for them), such that we can probably assume the number of shots being counted beyond after like 0.4 xG or so is probably really low. Just as one quick/obvious example that stands out, there’s not even a data point for Griezmann around 0.7 xG and my guess is that’s because no shots in the 176-shot sample for him actually had that xG.

More generally, the size of the circles in the chart is clearly supposed to measure how many such shots there were. So I think the data points for which the dot is small are probably not all that reliable (and, not coincidentally, those are the data points that end up diverging from xG the most).

lessthanjake · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

Yes, Neymar happens to have better finishing for the EXACT stretch Messi doesn't play. He just happens to hit good finishing form at the exact intersection of Messi's absence.
That is TOTALLY a more plausible and probable scenario than Neymar simply having better shot-taking opportunities and goal-scoring situations.
Go figure.
I won't take this argument further because at this point you argue to argue with zero interest for the truth and absolutely no credibility.
\
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You just refuse to accept that 40 shots is a small amount of data. You can take different 40-shot samples for a player and see that they’ll often differ quite a lot. I showed that already with Haaland. It’s normal for results of a 40-shot sample to vary a good deal from a player’s norm, and your entire argument is based on refusing to accept that. Heck, we even know that Neymar played like 14 other league/CL games for Barcelona with Messi out and didn’t score nearly as prolifically in those (I don’t know how he did compared to xG in those matches, but FWIW the goals per game was way lower than it was in the span you’re talking about). So your insistence on explaining Neymar’s xG overperformance over 40 shots as being because Messi was out isn’t supported by other data and, again, just relies on refusing to accept that it’s normal for 40-shot samples to vary a good deal from a player’s norm.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

By the way, I think it’s probably true that the charts don’t really have enough data, particularly at the very high end. Shots with high xG are very uncommon, and there’s not a ton of shots in the data set (particularly for the guys with fewer shots for them), such that we can probably assume the number of shots being counted beyond after like 0.4 xG or so is probably really low. Just as one quick/obvious example that stands out, there’s not even a data point for Griezmann around 0.7 xG and my guess is that’s because no shots in the 176-shot sample for him actually had that xG.

More generally, the size of the circles in the chart is clearly supposed to measure how many such shots there were. So I think the data points for which the dot is small are probably not all that reliable (and, not coincidentally, those are the data points that end up diverging from xG the most).
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Obviously those charts will have an accepted error based on sample size, and obviously the larger the sample size the closer to the true value. But the point is not to scrutinize the exact data point where Neymar performs worse, but to illustrate that this is obviously a concept.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

You just refuse to accept that 40 shots is a small amount of data. You can take different 40-shot samples for a player and see that they’ll often differ quite a lot. I showed that already with Haaland. It’s normal for results of a 40-shot sample to vary a good deal from a player’s norm, and your entire argument is based on refusing to accept that. Heck, we even know that Neymar played like 14 other league/CL games for Barcelona with Messi out and didn’t score nearly as prolifically in those (I don’t know how he did compared to xG in those matches, but FWIW the goals per game was way lower than it was in the span you’re talking about). So your insistence on explaining Neymar’s xG overperformance over 40 shots as being because Messi was out is not contrary to other data and, again, just relies on refusing to accept that it’s normal for 40-shot samples to vary a good deal from a player’s norm.
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The notion that Neymar's goal-opportunities without Messi during that 8 game stretch is the same sample composition as what he usually takes is a laughable proposition. That Neymar played better during that stretch is a fact, and the obvious explanation is the team catered to him more, and that he likely hit good form at the same time. That's not rocket science. It's obvious. That he scored more or finished better is not "random error" which is what you tried to claim in the first place.

Sexy Beast · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

The answers to your questions are fairly obvious. There is absolutely no reason you should expect a smooth curve.
Those graphs are produced by a statistician. I trust this person knows a thing or two about sampling that you don't.
Obviously when a team sets up an attack, the dynamic of the attack changes based on the players there. If Messi is the primary finisher, the play will be orchestrated more often than not to provide Messi with the highest quality chances. Tactics are different as are zones where balls are received and shot from.
Like you did not even take the time to think this through.
Obviously, Messi is a superior finisher to Neymar. That Neymar was playing at a higher level to Messi is because of other qualities he provided. There is no world Neymar was ever a better finisher than Messi.
You write, but you don't take the time to think.
Click to expand...

Absolutely one would expect smooth curves.

XG is primarily defined by a distance from the goal.

Such high variance would presume that Neymar is for example a very good finisher between radius of 6-9 meters also a very good finisher between 12-15 meters, but this distance inbetween 9 and 12 meters, yeah, with that one Neymar is really struggling and he still hasnt mastered shoting from 10 meters. Maybe if he practices shoting from that distance a bit more he can score more..

How would that even make any sense at all i dont know. There is no way to rationalize drastic changes in performance other than a lack of data. With more shots all of these would even out and have a nice unique curve or line for each player.

But you are not arguing that Messi gets higher quality chances, but thaz he gets specific type of shots every time that somehow unables Neymar to do the same the next posession as if Messi is camping at certain spots attempting first time shots.

Neymar got all the shots he needed. Even if he got them less frequently that would have no effect on his performance with xG only on a goal tally

lessthanjake · Sep 6, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

Obviously those charts will have an accepted error based on sample size, and obviously the larger the sample size the closer to the true value. But the point is not to scrutinize the exact data point where Neymar performs worse, but to illustrate that this is obviously a concept.
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Yes, and I think you and I agree that it’s a concept. I’m just saying I wouldn’t really put much stock on exactly where some of those data points lie, particularly the smaller dots at the higher xGs, where I think the sample of shots is particularly low and that that probably accounts for why some of them diverge rather far from xG. But I do agree with you that the concept exists and could potentially affect players’ xG over/underperformance to at least some degree.

If Messi doesn't play, Neymar would be taking more central shots that he is relatively more comfortable finishing.
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You don’t know if that’s true at all. Like, maybe it is? But, you haven’t provided any evidence for that, and as I’ve said, I literally attended one of the 8 matches in question and I can tell you Neymar was not playing centrally in that match. Nor have you provided evidence that Neymar is “relatively more comfortable” finishing from central areas anyways.

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

The notion that Neymar's goal-opportunities without Messi during that 8 game stretch is the same sample composition as what he usually takes is a laughable proposition. That Neymar played better during that stretch is a fact, and the obvious explanation is the team catered to him more, and that he likely hit good form at the same time. That's not rocket science. It's obvious. That he scored more or finished better is not "random error" which is what you tried to claim in the first place.
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I think at this point we can just agree to disagree. I don’t really think anyone else reading this agrees with you on this issue and your point appears to just be based on making your own speculative inferences, but you’re obviously not going to back down from it (EDIT: or maybe you are backing down from it by saying “he likely hit good form at the same time”?), so it’s probably best for us to just to leave it at this point (and probably was best to do so long ago if we’re being honest).

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

Sexy Beast said: ↑

Absolutely one would expect smooth curves.

XG is primarily defined by a distance from the goal.

Such high variance would presume that Neymar is for example a very good finisher between radius of 6-9 meters also a very good finisher between 12-15 meters, but this distance inbetween 9 and 12 meters, yeah, with that one Neymar is really struggling and he still hasnt mastered shoting from 10 meters. Maybe if he practices shoting from that distance a bit more he can score more..

How would that even make any sense at all i dont know. There is no way to rationalize drastic changes in performance other than a lack of data. With more shots all of these would even out and have a nice unique curve or line for each player.

But you are not arguing that Messi gets higher quality chances, but thaz he gets specific type of shots every time that somehow unables Neymar to do the same the next posession as if Messi is camping at certain spots attempting first time shots.

Neymar got all the shots he needed. Even if he got them less frequently that would have no effect on his performance with xG only on a goal tally
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Obviously without Messi, Neymar would get higher quality chances...

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/06/karim-benzema-real-madrid-al-ittihad-transfer/

Look at the volume of shots inside the box for Benzema skyrocketing in Ronaldo's absence. He ended up being at the end of more quality attscking opportunities.
Obviously, the shots that Messi does not take, a portion of those attacking moves will go to Neymar. I can't believe we are arguing the most obvious point in the world.

lessthanjake · Sep 6, 2023

Okay, I hesitate to keep posting on this subject, but a couple very quick things on this:

1. I wouldn’t think one would make an argument that draws a direct analogy between the effect on teammates’ chance quality of the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo and the effect on teammates’ chance quality of the absence of one of the greatest chance creators in the history of football. Those are obviously two very different things, and we should not in any way assume they’d have similar effects in terms of the quality of teammates’ chances.

2. In any event, though, that link includes some stats about shots inside the box, but they’re only stats for a couple specific seasons and they are not normalized by minutes played. If you look at WhoScored stats, you can see that, in league + CL for Real Madrid, Benzema averaged 2.76 shots inside the box per 90 minutes in his years with Ronaldo, and 3.03 shots inside the box per 90 minutes in his years without Ronaldo. So Ronaldo’s presence does seem to have had a very slight effect on Benzema’s volume of shots inside the box, but it’s a pretty minor one. And again, even that minor effect is not something we should remotely assume would be similar when it comes to the absence of Messi, who is a substantially better chance creator than Ronaldo. So I’d say if anything this analogy actually goes against the argument being made.

I’d also quickly note that even if we posited that Neymar would systematically get better-quality chances without Messi (a somewhat dubious claim, but let’s just assume it for argument’s purposes), that wouldn’t tell us that Neymar would be liable to outperform xG more on such chances (which is what’s being discussed), and indeed the graph provided regarding Neymar’s finishing at different xG’s actually doesn’t support such a claim at all.

Ozora · Sep 6, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

Yeah, I guess I think we probably saw about his max potential but it was basically in that 2017-2018 to 2019-2020 timespan where he had so many injuries that he only actually played half the time (and missed lots of crucial matches). It’s actually an interesting question, though, because generally players aren’t at their best in injury-riddled seasons (since it often takes a bit of time to get back to form after coming back from an injury), so theoretically Neymar might’ve had a potential even higher than what we saw, if he’d not had so many injuries in those peak years. There’s just so many what-ifs with Neymar. The way his career went has been quite a shame IMO, including this recent decision to go to Saudi Arabia at age 31.
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17/18 Neymar is probably the best possible version of himself. I think he reached his max potential during that time. He couldn't maintain that level because he is a clown, doesn't have mental strength to play all season (there is no way he just picked up injury in February, every year).

Don't know what saywhatiwant user is wasting his time here. But if try to prove Neymar is an effective finisher with great shooting accuracy, then the simple answer: He isn't.

Maybe in beginning of last season (pre World Cup), Neymar was in the form of his life, his shooting was great during that period.

Ozora · Sep 6, 2023

In a way, Neymar's player profile is similiar to Messi's (not on the same level of course) He likes to play centrally, involve in passing/playmaking game and dribble.

SayWhatIWant · Sep 6, 2023

Ozora said: ↑

17/18 Neymar is probably the best possible version of himself. I think he reached his max potential during that time. He couldn't maintain that level because he is a clown, doesn't have mental strength to play all season (there is no way he just picked up injury in February, every year).

Don't know what saywhatiwant user is wasting his time here. But if try to prove Neymar is an effective finisher with great shooting accuracy, then the simple answer: He isn't.

Maybe in beginning of last season (pre World Cup), Neymar was in the form of his life, his shooting was great during that period.
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Don't rudely attribute false statements to me. You will retract your statement.

Sexy Beast · Sep 7, 2023

SayWhatIWant said: ↑

Obviously without Messi, Neymar would get higher quality chances...

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/06/karim-benzema-real-madrid-al-ittihad-transfer/

Look at the volume of shots inside the box for Benzema skyrocketing in Ronaldo's absence. He ended up being at the end of more quality attscking opportunities.
Obviously, the shots that Messi does not take, a portion of those attacking moves will go to Neymar. I can't believe we are arguing the most obvious point in the world.
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But that is what xG statistic already reflects. For that is invented lool.

There is absolutely no reason for Neymar to underperform his xG in presence of Messi.

He overperformed it in those 8 games purely for pscyhological reasons as a whimp of form and that is it. Something that wouldnt continue on because normally he doesnt overperform.

He doesnt score those "high quality chances" at any rate close to Messi.

How does Son overperform his xG with Kane on the pitch? Neymar couldnt do that because he is an average finisher and we have 80% of his career to see that he is not a elite goalscorer without Messi on the pitch either.

There is no argument here.

I am done with this one

OffTheBallMovement · Sep 7, 2023

You are comparing Neymar at his very best with almost the whole career of Lionel Messi and that's the only way you can compare Neymar with Messi. You know that both Messi and Ronaldo at their very best in a three seasons spam wipes the floor with Neymar even in a per 90 basis

lessthanjake · Sep 7, 2023

OffTheBallMovement said: ↑

You are comparing Neymar at his very best with almost the whole career of Lionel Messi and that's the only way you can compare Neymar with Messi. You know that both Messi and Ronaldo at their very best in a three seasons spam wipes the floor with Neymar even in a per 90 basis
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Both of them would certainly wipe the floor with Neymar when we take availability into account. I’m not really sure that’s the case if we’re just talking about sheer quality when he did play. Neymar was outrageous in those peak years. It’s just that he only played half the time, so it wasn’t super valuable.

OffTheBallMovement · Sep 7, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

Both of them would certainly wipe the floor with Neymar when we take availability into account. I’m not really sure that’s the case if we’re just talking about sheer quality when he did play. Neymar was outrageous in those peak years. It’s just that he only played half the time, so it wasn’t super valuable.
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That's why I said they wipes the floor "even on a per 90 basis". If the problem was just "availability", then it should be comparable at least on a per 90 basis. And it is clear that it is not the case. Ronaldo 13/14 to 15/16 wipes the floor with Neymar 17/18 to 19/20 even on a per 90 basis. Not counting that Ronaldo was playing against prime Barcelona and Atlético Madrid at LaLiga and reaching 2 finals and a semifinal of the Champions League which should hurt his average against Neymar since he is facing tougher opponents. So Neymar has that advantage and still, Ronaldo wipes the floor with him even on a per 90 basis

lessthanjake · Sep 7, 2023

OffTheBallMovement said: ↑

That's why I said they wipes the floor "even on a per 90 basis". If the problem was just "availability", then it should be comparable at least on a per 90 basis. And it is clear that it is not the case. Ronaldo 13/14 to 15/16 wipes the floor with Neymar 17/18 to 19/20 even on a per 90 basis. Not counting that Ronaldo was playing against prime Barcelona and Atlético Madrid at LaLiga and reaching 2 finals and a semifinal of the Champions League which should hurt his average against Neymar since he is facing tougher opponents. So Neymar has that advantage and still, Ronaldo wipes the floor with him even on a per 90 basis
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The point of this thread is that that’s not really the case. I’ve provided a lot of data in the OP about Neymar’s insanely good per-90-minute stats in those years.

OffTheBallMovement · Sep 7, 2023

lessthanjake said: ↑

The point of this thread is that that’s not really the case. I’ve provided a lot of data in the OP about Neymar’s insanely good per-90-minute stats in those years.
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Messi from 10/11 to 12/13
1.12 goals p90
0.43 assists p90
1.55 G+A p90

Ronaldo from 13/14 to 15/16
1.08 goals p90
0.31 assists p90
1.39 G+A p90

Neymar from 17/18 to 19/20
0.80 goals p90
0.48 assists p90
1.28 G+A p90

I got Messi and Ronaldo's data from MessivsRonaldo.app and Neymar's data from fbref on club and from transfermarkt on NT so maybe I counted some non opta assists for Neymar

Sexy Beast · Sep 7, 2023

OffTheBallMovement said: ↑

Messi from 10/11 to 12/13
1.12 goals p90
0.43 assists p90
1.55 G+A p90

Ronaldo from 13/14 to 15/16
1.08 goals p90
0.31 assists p90
1.39 G+A p90

Neymar from 17/18 to 19/20
0.80 goals p90
0.48 assists p90
1.28 G+A p90

I got Messi and Ronaldo's data from MessivsRonaldo.app and Neymar's data from fbref on club and from transfermarkt on NT so maybe I counted some non opta assists for Neymar
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And Neymar wipes the floor with Ronaldo in all non-goal/assists stats.. progressive passes and progressive carries while being only one of few players of the last 20+ years to somewhat compete with them in terms of those rudimentary stats.

carlito86 · Sep 7, 2023

Sexy Beast said: ↑

And Neymar wipes the floor with Ronaldo in all non-goal/assists stats.. progressive passes and progressive carries while being only one of few players of the last 20+ years to somewhat compete with them in terms of those rudimentary stats.
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Cristiano Ronaldo was a superior ball carrier to Messi

Yeah Messi... also known as the guy you wish you had in your mouth
And I don’t mean his name either

That is the only available source that covers cristiano in his actual physical prime

https://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-evolution-of-cristiano-ronaldo-real-madrid-manchester-united/

Cristiano was fouled more per 90 in the premier league then Eden hazard(another indicator of ball carrying ability for the seasons we don’t have complete data for)

727 - Kevin Davies is the most fouled player in the last 10 Premier League seasons, ahead of @Cristiano 500. Bruised. #AskOpta @dclark0
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 5, 2012

2nd in the premier league between 2002-2012 even though he wasn’t there for 4 of those years

Keep on barking though and I’ll feed you crumbs

OffTheBallMovement · Sep 7, 2023

Sexy Beast said: ↑

And Neymar wipes the floor with Ronaldo in all non-goal/assists stats.. progressive passes and progressive carries while being only one of few players of the last 20+ years to somewhat compete with them in terms of those rudimentary stats.
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You have made some statements without providing data to support them. How many "progressive passes" and "progressive carries" did Ronaldo had between 13/14 and 15/16? Since the claim is yours, it is your obligation to provide the data to support your claims. Otherwise, you're just saying words thrown to the wind without any credibility.

At the end of the day Ronaldo's ending result is clearly above Neymar even playing against stronger opponents and he didn't had the benefit of resting half of the season