Eight hundred and one. And counting. The greatest, proven, goalscorer in football history returned to the Manchester United fold, rewrote the record books and demonstrated why the era of Cristiano Ronaldo is far from at an end.
Two goals, one a penalty, were enough to give Michael Carrick a valuable unbeaten run as interim’s interim, and make Ronaldo the first player to 800 competitive goals, despite some lurid claims from elsewhere. Hungary claim Lajos Tichy had nearer to 2,000; the Czechs also state four figures for Josip Bican; and Pele is credited with 1,000 plus.
Yet not one of these totals can be substantiated.