Cristiano Ronaldo: 'A phenomenal hat-trick and a staggering performance' - Alan Shearer analysis

There are some people who think Cristiano Ronaldo is a problem for Manchester United, but god knows where they would be without him.

I said a few weeks ago that, if it wasn't for Ronaldo, United would be far worse off than they are — and Saturday's game against Tottenham summed up why in a nutshell.

He was quite simply the only reason they beat Spurs. His hat-trick was phenomenal and his overall performance was so good, it was staggering.

It was no surprise to me because he has been doing this for years and years now — he has 59 hat-tricks, which is just ridiculous — but this was some response to his critics and all three of his goals were special in their own way.

You could argue Eric Dier was at fault for Ronaldo's first goal of the night — you cannot allow any player that much space to shoot from distance, let alone if that player is Cristiano Ronaldo.

But as much as Spurs will analyse it and look at how poor they were defensively, you still need incredible skill and technique to be able to do what he did and find the top corner from there.

His second goal was nowhere near as spectacular but you can bet it gave him just as much satisfaction. I enjoyed scoring from three yards just as much as I did from 30.

It's a tap-in but he is in the right place to put it away from three or four yards out because of his desire and his intelligence — his positional play and his understanding of the game gets him in there.

His third goal was my favourite, though — Ronaldo had to get every part of it right, and he did.

From the way he reads the flight of the cross to the way he attacks it and times his jump, then meets the ball with accuracy and power, it was all absolutely perfect — a textbook header.

In those situations it is always one