Like we said so many times before, whatever Cristiano Ronaldo does (or doesn’t do), still makes the headlines. In a shocking loss to Aston Villa at the Old Trafford, the main news was Bruno Fernandes’ penalty miss deep in injury time, but somehow, the other Portuguese ended up in the stories related to the game. From suggestions that he should take the penalties in the future, to the claims that he is to blame for Ferdinands’ penalty miss, Ronaldo was again the main participant in the defeat story. Oddly enough, nobody was talking about United’s failed opportunities to score, but only about Villa’s possible offside goal, or Fernandes miss. Off course, even before coach Solskjaer gave support to Bruno and announced that he will continue to take penalties, the fans on social media went on a campaign to promote Ronaldo as the penalty taker. But, would that be a good idea?Villa keeper shouts at Ronaldo to take the penalty kick, Ole blames VAR for the lossFernandes already missed a penalty this season, as Newcastle’s Karl Darlow saved his rather poor effort, but United eventually won the game 4-1 so everything was fine. And wherever he played, Ronaldo was the penalty scorer, except in Manchester. But the statistic show that Ronaldo had converted 80% of the penalties he’d taken in his career while Fernandes was much better – 93%. That percent has dropped to 90% after the miss in Villa game, but it’s still better that 80%. Ronaldo has taken more penalties [139 scored and 28 missed] across his career than Fernandes [42 scored and four missed], which could explain that differential, but still, to keep Fernandes as the penalty taker was a good decision.(2.40) ARSENAL (3.45) TOTTENHAM (3.10)And there were some interesting quotes after the match from former Spurs player and manager Tim Sherwood, who basically accused Ronaldo of pressuring Fernandes and affecting his judgement. “You don’t miss that, you never see him blast it over the crossbar, he normally waits for the goalkeeper to go down and rolls it into the other corner. It’s the pressure, the main man is here. It’s distorted his thinking, he’s got one chance, one chance only and we’ve seen it gone there“ Sherwood said on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday.
