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Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo has been pipped to the post by former Arsenal star Thierry Henry in a poll for the Premier League’s best-ever player.
Betfair conducted the audience poll in partnership with YouGOV to celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary of the English Premier League. More than 1000 people voted, with Thierry Henry getting around 15% of the overall votes.
Ronaldo came in second while all-time Premier League top scorer Alan Shearer finished third in the poll.
The likes of Eric Cantona, Steven Gerrard, Dennis Bergkamp, Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne, Ryan Giggs, and Sergio Aguero rounded off the rest of the top 10, in that order.
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Ronaldo is currently in his second spell at Manchester United. The Portuguese has scored a total of 123 goals and has 47 assists in 287 appearances across all competitions for the club.
Henry also had two spells at Arsenal as he was brought in on loan by Arsene Wenger in the 2011-12 season.
Wantaway Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo is the second-best PL player ever in poll
While Cristiano might have finished behind Henry in the poll for the Premier League's greatest, he did not have his best years in England. For Manchester United, the Portuguese was more of an expansive winger for much of his first stint with them.
It was only in the final two seasons at United that he was regularly used as a center-forward. This was a trend that culminated with him becoming the greatest-ever Champions League goalscorer for Real Madrid.
The Portuguese won only one of his five Ballon d’Or awards as a Manchester United player and only reached his prime at Madrid. He became Madrid's all-time top goalscorer and won four Champions League trophies with the club before leaving for Juventus in 2018.
Now at 37, Ronaldo is still going strong but is well past his prime. The player is unsettled at Manchester United and has been the subject of a long-drawn transfer saga this summer.
Still, considering his attitude and determination to be the best-ever, the Manchester United forward will be chafed after finishing second in the poll. The striker scored 24 goals across competitions last season for a poor United team that could only finish sixth in the league. The trend continued last weekend with the disastrous loss against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League opener.
Manager Erik ten Hag knows that Cristiano is still the best goalscorer at the club and can be expected to respond by adding him to the starting lineup against Brentford on Saturday.
