‘Ronaldo contract all finalised’

Guillem Balague runs through the talking points in La Liga, including the latest on Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract situation at Real Madrid.

Atletico Madrid continued their fine form with a 7-1 victory against Granada at the Vicente Calderon, while Barcelona saw off Deportivo 4-0 and Real Madrid beat Real Betis 6-1.

Goals galore and plenty to talk about, and Guillem also answers some of your transfer-related questions below…

Ronaldo’s new contract

Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract is all done, all finalised, they’re just waiting for the right time to announce it. Remember there are elections at Real Madrid for the presidency in 2017, which means they may time the whole thing to suit Florentino Perez.

It has been agreed for months. Nobody has come out with an exact number on how many years, but it’s either two or three years.

Real Madrid have been forced, in a way, to give him a new contract for different reasons. 1) His contract finishes in 2018. 2) Because of the transfer ban. 3) Even though there was a strategy from both parties to see if they could get end up going separate ways, basically it didn’t take off. Paris Saint-Germain were not interested enough, Manchester United were never in the equation, and Cristiano decided it was best to stay put.

Is his future best off at Real? Certainly it provides him with the money he wants, but more importantly with the competitiveness to allow him to win more titles.

His frustration has been that Real Madrid have not built teams to win leagues, and that may have worked against his CV a little bit, but Real have also guaranteed he can fight for the Ballon d’Or, which will always be something important to him.

Are Real Madrid better off with him? What I’ve been saying for a while is that Ronaldo has peaked physically, and now he’s a different type of player now. It’s not a criticism, just a description of the situation. He’s not changed, he’s just reduced his area of influence.

It means he will still be a top goalscorer, he will not beat players, but he will still be a goalscorer. In my eyes, the best ever.

How Zinedine Zidane manages the continued progression of Gareth Bale, and the fact that Ronaldo still wants to start his attacks down the left flank, will define whether Cristiano will be happy or not. He wants to be the most influential player in the team.

I got the impression Bale was growing a lot last season, but this season has perhaps been limited again to a more right-wing role. He doesn’t roam as freely at the moment, but the BBC has not played many games together, so we will have to see if it is the …

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