Maybe the problem is that you think I was too critical of the other United players, and what you're saying is that they all have superb individual talent—i.e., it's not just Ronaldo who overcomes their shortcomings in teamwork. I'd agree with that up to a point (I definitely don't mean to suggest that the side isn't full of extremely talented players), but I still can't see them being where they are now without Ronaldo's incredible goalscoring. It's all just what-ifs at that point, though. Anyway, I think our opinions may not be all that far apart.

A. and Melina — Interesting stuff. I never know exactly what to make of Kaka. All those video clips are fantastic (the third one, the CL goal against Man Utd, gave me chills when I saw it at the time), but sometimes I think (along with Melina, maybe) that he's a lot of gorgeous video highlights strung together with some fairly anonymous play. But it's almost impossible to avoid the present-form bias (Utd are winning, so Ronaldo looks better) and the who-I've-seen-more-of bias (I've watched probably 25 Utd games this year and only 8-9 Milan games) so I'll just say I'm glad they're both around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veW6VjmAcVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

You're right about Ronaldo—you can't argue with his performance, whether you're judging with your eyes or judging him with stats.

But I do think a player like Kaka, on the other hand, might be fooling us into thinking he's better than he is (at least when it comes to getting wins) because he's such a delight to watch. Not only does he score a lot of goals, but the goals he does score (and the plays he makes) are beautiful.

Melina, it's an interesting question, the possibility of statistically quantifying games as fluid and non-situational as soccer and basketball. My brilliant brother-in-law writes for both Baseball Prospectus and Basketball Prospectus, the latter of which has done a lot of fascinating work on this very subject. We should have him on for a chat.

I remember being skeptical about that Wages of Wins book when it came out—it just seemed a little too perfectly suited to some trends in commercial publishing (the popularity of counterintuitive numbers-driven explanations after Freakonomics, the popularity of sabermetrics and complex stat modeling in baseball after Moneyball, etc.) to be really impartial, I thought. I haven't read it, though, so I could be totally wrong.

My own take is that soccer fans probably do tend to overrate goalscoring as part of a player's overall contribution to a team. But once we have that realization, it probably becomes pretty easy to underrate it, and to say about Ronaldo, instance, "Well, all he does is score goals." Scoring goals is still really important! And when a player approaches 40 on a season (a mark Ronaldo will almost certainly pass this year) for a team that's won as much as Man Utd, the question of whether the accomplishment is overvalued is probably a bit academic.

I would hardly call that 'incineration' but maybe that's just me.

if c ronaldo isn`t a one man team, he is definitely the centre of attention.

anybody else in this man u team is a much smaller part of the story. vidic, a rejuvenated ferdinand, rooney … its all about c. ronaldo.

interesting point, about his goal tally even though he is a winger. i think he is now a go-whereever-he-wants-to-er. that last game of his against villa, he lobbed in a cross for tevez from a traditional wing position. but those two passes for rooney`s goals, he was in the middle of the park.

hehe, when you are playing this well, you can go where you want, and do what you want. that back heel goal.

Here's the link:

http://www.newyorker.com/archi.....rbo_books1

I wonder how this applies to soccer. Anyone would be remiss if they suggested Ronaldo was not the key to United's success this year. And in soccer, where the scores are so low, maybe it is the guys who put the ball in the net who would come out on top. It all depends on how different aspects are valued: if we created a soccer algorithm, how many points would a goal be worth versus a goal-saving tackle in the box? etc.

However, I think you underestimate the rest of the United team. Maybe an injury to Ronaldo would have (maybe still will) cost United the title this season.

Or maybe Nani would have played more often and produced more. Carrick and Scholes, at Premier League level, still produce the passes to win most games. Rooney and Tevez would have played more often together.

Maybe without Ronaldo, Fergie would have bought that missing striker in the January transfer window?

And the defence have been immense this season. For all the goals Ronaldo scored, the defence is the thing that kept us in it at the start of the season

Puyol should look into this.

I've been hiding under the bed since, peaking out every now and then in the vain hope that Leo Messi will magically appear and spirit us away from the approaching danger.

After having seen our defense repeatedly shredded in consecutive matches by the likes of Betis and Schalke, I am reduced to hoping that Ronaldo and friends will fall over themselves laughing at our ineptitude or somehow be moved to mercy.

Or perhaps Puyol can manage to get a mirror onto the pitch. That's the one thing that will always stop C. Ronaldo.

Ahmed — I agree about Nani and Anderson, who are both going to be very good in a few years, though they're too erratic to be real assets this year. I should have been more clear about that. The larger point is still that their inconsistency would stand a real chance of hurting the team if Ronaldo weren't playing so brilliantly.

Not sure I can agree on Carrick and Hargreaves. Except for odd flashes, I haven't seen Carrick be anything more than functional, and Hargreaves has been worse than Carrick. (Why was he left out yesterday till after halftime, for instance?) You've surely seen more United games than I have this year, though, so maybe I've just caught the wrong ones.

I would point out though, that in the effort to paint an effective contrast between Ronaldo and his teammates, you've pretty much shat on Carrick's role for last season and his resurgence this season.

Hargo – injury-stricken for most of the season, and has been dynamic and effective whenever he's been on.

Nani and Anderson – they've had some very good games, which is about all you can expect from a 'first season'. Remember Ronaldo's?

A bit on fergie's tactics, if you're interested.