First up I am a Man U fan. I have listened to so many critics slate Cristiano Ronaldo from day one. He came to United with so much potential and prehaps a rep for diving. I personally believe that in the begining he was billed a little higher than he deserved, but over the last couple of seasons he has grown with regard to the falling over too lightly and there is an end product to his crosses. He has matured so quickly for a guy still so young and Sir Alex and the staff deserve a lot of credit for that.
At the moment I believe that he is the Worlds greatest player simply because of his ability and influence on a game, he can score multiple goals and set up others to win a game. This season the winger is consistently outdoing all of the strikers in the Premier League (of which many of them are World class) to stay ahead in the race to be top golascorer, not to mention the goals he has in other competitions. For this reason I belive that Ronaldo is the real deal.

I agree Ronaldo has molded well to the English game and even moreso to the way Man U play it. However, I also think they could have done everything just as well without him and that his shining has dulled the efforts of a number of other great players. With that much talent in the squad, it is a bit like runts in the nest at feeding time...

Well I believe that the other great players efforts in the squad are being recognised by the people who matter in the game ie Sir Alex and Carlos Queiros, and with Ronaldo playing so well it's a bit like the way Cantona's flair and ability to win a game in the 90's inspired the other players to aspire to achieve the same, surely Scholes and Giggs were all the better having being exposed to his magic on the pitch, and perhaps the likes of Nani and Anderson will benefit from Ronaldo's. When you have a player in his kind of form it can only lift the team and allow other players to express themselves even more on the pitch.

It's the media who have forgotten the other great players, but I believe that those players only seek the adoration of the manager and winning silverware, not the headlines of the back pages.

Although that being said I understand what you mean about some players being dulled by another player shining so brightly and in one case hogging the limelight from others, and that is Theiry Henry when he was at Arsenal. When he left Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor were finally allowed to impose themselves on the game but when Henry was there everything had to go through him. However there is already evidence of Adebayor becoming Henryesc...... Yesterday in the Birmingham game he had the chance to make it
3-1 by squaring a simple ball to Nicklas Bendtner but went for glory and we know how that ended up!!!

if it was not for his habit of diving, he would have easily been considered a great of the game but that has tarnished his image and so i would say he is outstanding but not great

In my mind, the difference between a great and an outstanding player is consistency. Henry performed consistently over a number of seasons banging in goals week in week out, Ronaldo is still young and although he is having a great season it remains to be seen whether he can sustain that sort of play over a longer spell.

I agree totally with your point about continuing this form over a number of seasons to be considered great, I am not saying he is undisputed Worlds best player I am only saying that as this season goes so far he is way ahead of all the rest.

he has to play some more at this level to be considered better than outstanding though if you judge him with the same yardstick as drogba you will realize that he is not a great player - diving and all. let us see if he can even help utd retain their title.