Cristiano Ronaldo has 12 games to change Manchester United transfer plans

The Watford fans did their best to get inside the head of Cristiano Ronaldo on Saturday, although truth be told there already seems to be plenty of demons residing there without any more uninvited guests.

Once again there was the odd mocking 'Siuuuu' whenever anything went wrong for Ronaldo, which was often, and there was also the familiar, although less regular these days, taunt of 'you're just a s**t' Lionel Messi. That one was a regular barb in the days when Messi and Ronaldo seemed to be engaged in their own individual battles to outdo each other every weekend, producing eye-watering feats in front of goal and jaw-dropping moments on the pitch.

Football's cult of personality means it will take a while for us to wean ourselves off the idea of Ronaldo and Messi being the pre-eminent players in world football, but even if their heirs aren't quite ready to take the throne, the duo who have 12 Ballon d'Or titles between them look to be departing the very pinnacle of the game. Both could yet light up the Champions League this season and - probably unsurprisingly - that stage has tended to bring the best out of them this term, but Messi has scored just twice in 16 Ligue 1 games for Paris Saint-Germain and Ronaldo has nine goals in 23 Premier League games for United. That's not the record of the world's best players.

PSG's attack is so grand and their domestic league so weak that they can afford to carry Messi as a freestyling Harlem Globetrotter, occasionally getting the crowd to their feet with another flick or trick, but United's situation isn't comparable. The late summer addition of Ronaldo might have helped shift shirts and it played to a romantic narrative, but fundamentally it had to be about upgrading the team.

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