Is there substance to Fabio Capello's stunning outburst on Cristiano Ronaldo?

Juventus have a slender one point lead at the top of Serie A heading into the final international break of 2019 and are one of only two teams still unbeaten in Europe's top five leagues. Everything is swell in Turin, right? Wrong. Maurizio Sarri has a Cristiano Ronaldo-shaped problem on his hands and it's unlikely to go away anytime soon.
 

The Juventus head coach has boldly taken off Ronaldo in each of the club's last two matches, even hauling the 34-year-old off 10 minutes into the second half of their match with AC Milan on Sunday. Ronaldo has now been subbed off as many times in the last week as he was throughout the entire 2018/19 campaign.

What's most striking is Sarri has taken Ronaldo off with Juventus chasing the game and not when they are cruising to victory. They were drawing with Lokomotiv Moscow when Paulo Dybala came on for Ronaldo in the 82nd-minute and level with Milan when the same substitution was made at the weekend. Juventus went on to win both matches, vindicating Sarri's decisions.

The Juventus head coach is adamant he took Ronaldo off against Milan due to injury and not because of poor performance, a claim that has since been questioned by Ronaldo's international team-mate, Goncalo Paciencia. Ronaldo went straight down the tunnel after being substituted against Milan, which prompted Fabio Capello's stunning rant.

"I didn't like this, it wasn't nice. He must be a champion even when he comes off the pitch," the former England manager told Sky Sport Italia. "The truth is that Cristiano Ronaldo hasn't dribbled [past] an opponent for three years. I did LaLiga commentary when he usually took the double step and left you there.

"Bravo Sarri, who had the courage to take him off. It takes personality, especially when thinking that all the players in the squad can play and make a difference. Cristiano did it for a while, but now it's not him and he must recover - especially on a physical level. He does not have the speed and dynamism he has shown at other times."

Capello's outburst caught many by surprise, particularly as he took aim at one very specific part of Ronaldo's game. But is there any substance to what Capello said? Has Ronaldo lost his ability to beat a man? The simple answer is no. Capello is wide of the mark in that respect. Since August 2017, Ronaldo has completed 91 dribbles in the league. His dribble success rate is 56.9% in that time, by no means a stunning return, but actually an improvement on the three seasons prior to that (49.1%).

Statistics show Ronaldo is actually dribbling more at Juventus than he did during his final years at Madrid. Ronaldo averaged exactly one successful dribble per game in 56 league appearances across his last two years at Madrid but that figure is up to 1.5 per game at Juventus. In just 41 league appearances for the Old Lady, Ronaldo has already completed more dribbles (60) than he did in his final two years in Spain (56).

Maybe that is part of the problem for Ronaldo at the moment, who has now registered three WhoScored ratings below 7.00 in succession for club for the first time in a single campaign since we started receiving Opta data in 2009. He has spent the best-part of his thirties focusing entirely on scoring goals but at Juventus he is also now expending a lot of energy in one-on-one situations with opposition defenders.

Six goals in 14 league and European appearances would be deemed a satisfactory start to the season for most strikers but not Ronaldo, especially as two of those have been penalties. Fans have become so accustomed to seeing Ronaldo net braces and hat-tricks on a regular basis that it is a shock he is yet to score more than once in a single game for Juventus this season in all competitions.

It's not for a lack of trying, either. Ronaldo still averages 5.7 shots per game - the highest return in Europe's top five leagues - this season, though that is well down on his average at Madrid (6.7). Slow starts to the season are not entirely uncommon for Ronaldo, as his body plays catch up from the rigours of the campaign before. At this stage of the 2017/18 campaign, his last for Madrid, Ronaldo had only one goal in seven league appearances. He finished that season with almost a goal-per-game ratio (26 goals in 27 games).

According to the Expected Goals metric, Ronaldo should have 5.86 goals in Serie A this season. More simply put, Ronaldo has only scored one fewer goal than he should have, considering the quality of shots he has taken and the probable outcome they should or should not have ended in a goal. While the feeling is Ronaldo should generally have more goals to his name given the high volume of shots he has attempted, he is actually performing relatively close to expected. The problem for Sarri is that number is quite low for someone of Ronaldo's high standards.

Capello started this conversation off by claiming Ronaldo can no longer dribble past players and actually the problem is Ronaldo is dribbling too much. Ronaldo averages 5.9 touches in the opposition box per league game this season, compared to 6.7 last season and 9.6 during his last season at Madrid. Sarri's job now is to get Ronaldo to forget about dribbling and focus again on receiving the ball in goalscoring positions. Ronaldo celebrated 700 career goals last month and you wouldn't bet against the Juventus star celebrating more milestones before he calls time on his career.