Cristiano Ronaldo can be a frustrating f**ker at times.
Around this time last season, he hit similar road bumps. His form wasn't great, he was petulant, he was lazy, he was blaming others.
Of course, the most Ronaldo thing about it all is that, when you question whether he might be coming to the end of his career or not, he answers with 10 goals in five games across the quarters, semis and final of the Champions League with the most electrifying individual performances in a European knockout stage ever.
He'll probably do something similar again in this campaign - you'd be a d*ck head at this rate to write him off - but it doesn't make his slumps any less depressing.
It's not the results, it's not the fact that he's scored just four goals in 13 league games, it's everything outside of the end product which obviously contributes to the end product.
We're in another vicious circle where you have the best player in the world on his day so reactive now to how the team are doing. Real Madrid aren't going well and Ronaldo isn't going well and, when Ronaldo isn't going well, Ronaldo goes even worse. He throws his hands up, he gestures, moans, gets caught up on what might've been and spends more time shaking his head than he does going for the next ball.
When he doesn't get what he wants, when Madrid are up against it, he's not making things happen anymore. Now? He's diving.
Real suffered another blow on Sunday when they were held at Celta Vigo. Two goals from Gareth Bale weren't enough as the league and European champions drew 2-2 and slipped 16 points behind the undefeated Barcelona.
They had a five-time Ballon d'Or winner running around but his involvement was more memorable for his arm-throwing and body-throwing.
Cristiano Ronaldo is going to go down as one of the two best players of all time and, on his day. even now, he is unplayable. He still has everything any footballer could ever want but, unfortunately, he still has a streak where he's either feeling sorry for himself or looking for the handy way out.
So, instead of grabbing games by the scruff of the neck and just being the best player in the world influencing the best team in the world to go beat Celta Vigo, Ronaldo is trying to con the referee instead to buy cheap free kicks.
He even looks at the ref on his way down.
It's sad to see Ronaldo reduced to that, especially when he still had the ball and actually beat the bloody man. But it's inexcusable too for the referee to watch it in clear sight with the best seat in the house and do nothing but shrug his shoulders.
He doesn't say anything to Ronaldo, he doesn't punish him accordingly. He doesn't deal with a footballer cheating in front of him when there are rules there and punishments there to be applied.
And what happens then is Ronaldo has the audacity to laugh as if the referee is an idiot.
The ref
is an idiot for refusing to do anything about the dive and for allowing Ronaldo to walk away unpunished with the freedom to try con the rest of the world into believing he was hard-done-by.
Yet again, this pointless and nasty act isn't dealt with like it should be and, once more, a role model for millions in countries all over the planet is setting the example and the authorities are doing nothing about it.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo is doing nothing about Real Madrid's run. He'll wait 'til they get going again before he has any interest.
