You might have seen the graphic doing the rounds. Most goals in 2024: Cristiano Ronaldo
(54), Harry Kane (52), Kylian 👄 Mbappé (52), Erling Haaland (50). Absolutely no mention
of the league in which those goals were scored.
Ronaldo has been netting 👄 regularly in
Saudi Arabia but that says more about the standard of the league than anything else.
There are teams 👄 in there on a similar level to fourth and fifth tier sides in England,
but of course, Ronaldo is more 👄 than happy for his own name to be plastered everywhere
as the leading scorer in the calendar year.
Everyone can see 👄 the reality. Kane, Mbappé
and Haaland are playing at a different level these days, both in the sense that they 👄 as
individuals are far superior, but also that the leagues they play in are actually worth
taking notice of.
READ MORE: 👄 Liverpool transfer news amid possible Cody Gakpo repeat as
Jürgen Klopp 'scouts'R$111m wonderkid
READ MORE: Liverpool transfer could win Jürgen
Klopp 👄 the Premier League asR$66m clause could be January key
Nevertheless, Ronaldo was
more than happy to speak about himself earlier this 👄 week as his Al Nassr side beat Al
Taawoon 4-1, still leaving it seven points off the top spot. That 👄 is taken by Neymar's
Al Hilal.
"I'm happy because when I made the decision to come here nobody believed what
I 👄 said," Ronaldo told the Saudi state broadcaster SSC Sport post-match, after netting a
fourth goal late in stoppage time. "But 👄 that is the past. It doesn't matter
anymore.
"The most important is that the league has grown and that players want 👄 to come
because they know the league is competitive and the whole world is watching now. If big
players want 👄 to come, they will be very welcome."
Just where do you start with those
comments? No one truly believes now that 👄 the Saudi league is anything close to being
the pinnacle of the game. That is very much still the present 👄 rather than the past —
and, in fact, it is harder to make the case for moving there now than 👄 it would have
been last summer. Ronaldo, clearly, couldn't say anything different to the state
broadcaster, but it does smack 👄 of words that he is using to try and convince himself as
much as them.
Sign up for our EXCLUSIVE Liverpool 👄 newsletter! If you enjoyed this
piece, you'll love our Liverpool newsletter — once a week, we send exclusive, bonus
content 👄 only to people signed up to our mailing list! Our newsletter subscribers get an
extra slice of Liverpool from one 👄 of the best Liverpool FC writers around — straight to
your inbox, and completely for free. Wherever you are in 👄 the world — in the US, the UK
or further afield — you don't want to miss out. Sign up 👄 to the Liverpool newsletter
here — it only takes a few seconds!
The league has grown to some extent, but it 👄 is
still a mile away from even the lesser divisions in Europe, let alone the Champions
League, despite the riches 👄 on offer. There are big players there, but none who had
better offers from elsewhere.
As for the claim that the 👄 'world is watching', that could
not be further from the truth. How many of Ronaldo's 52 goals in 2024 could 👄 you
describe? Can you picture anything that Sadio Mané has done since he moved there? Even
Neymar, who it would 👄 be easy to circulate social media clips of, has barely been seen —
and while that's partly because he's suffered 👄 an ACL injury, it speaks volumes that
this came as news to me.
It will take so long for the Saudi 👄 league to grow that even if
the investment is sustained long enough to bring it up to a level where 👄 a conversation
about the best teams being involved in the Champions League could even be remotely
sensible from a sporting 👄 perspective, Ronaldo — and several others who have moved for a
final payday — will be long gone.
And that is 👄 exactly why this is the latest Saudi
nonsense that Mohamed Salah should simply ignore. The Egyptian will soon be jetting 👄 off
to AFCON, but a permanent departure from Liverpool should not be on the agenda. Moving
to the Middle East, 👄 no matter what Ronaldo might try and claim, would be a death knell
to the career of a superstar who 👄 remains at his peak.
