The 8 Man Utd players who scored more goals for the club than Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo prides himself on scoring goals, and he’s exceptionally good at it. A red-hot take from us, there. The Portuguese had two separate spells at Manchester United, but the Red Devils are not short of legendary goalscorers in their history books.
Ronaldo just about scrapes into the Red Devils’ top ten goalscorers of all time, sitting in ninth place on 145 goals. A massive haul of goals, especially considering he played as a winger for the vast majority of his first spell at the club.
These eight ballers are ahead of the fella from Madeira on United’s top scorers’ list, and they are gonna take some beating. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
8. Ruud van Nistelrooy – 150 goals
Big Ruud actually has the best goals-per-match record on this entire list. The Dutch striker scored 0.68 goals per game—a goal every 119 minutes he spent on the pitch.
Compare that with Ronaldo’s goal every 183 minutes, and you realise just what an outstanding goalscorer van Nistelrooy was. Absolutely lethal. Strong, fast, tall, good with both feet, a sublime finisher. What Man United would do to have Ruud van Nistelrooy leading the line for them now…
7. Paul Scholes – 153 goals
Paul Scholes? More like Paul Goals, are we right?
Nah, sorry. No more jokes. Scholesy scored eight more goals for Man United than Ronaldo did, but then Scholesy played twice as many games for the club.
In terms of playing style, Ronaldo and Scholes couldn’t be much more different from each other. Ronaldo is full of stepovers, he’s powerful, tall, quick (at least in his prime), and his whole game is oriented around goals.
Scholes was diminutive, technical, and used his brain more than his feet. Scholes played passes that were impossible for 99% of professional footballers, and, at least in our memory, he scored mostly absolute rockets from 35 yards.
6. Mark Hughes – 154 goals
You’ve seen that video of Hughes smashing the cleanest volley imaginable past a sprawling goalkeeper in Manchester City training, haven’t you? He was their manager at the time, and City had recently become unconscionably rich. A lot of big egos arriving at the club, all instantly crushed by the boss in his literally perfect technique.
Sparky was one of United’s greatest ever — 154 goals for the Red Devils is not to be sniffed at.
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5. George Best – 161 goals
Georgie Best, the fifth Beatle, is also the fifth top goalscorer in United’s history. Interestingly for a winger, Best only made 11 assists in his entire United career. He got the ball, he drove at you, he gave you the old twisted blood, and he scored.
When people talk about George Best, it’s usually all drink, partying, and women. But Best backed up the craic with the stats. He scored 0.38 goals per game across 11 years in Manchester, which, for a non-striker in the 1960s and 70s, is mightily impressive.
4. Ryan Giggs – 164 goals
Giggs was part of the last generation of wingers who tended to play on the same side of the pitch as their dominant foot. A conventional left-footed left-winger who was the perfect foil to David Beckham. Becks was on the right, rarely leaving defenders in his wake, but delivering inch-perfect crosses.
Giggs was on the other side, skinning right-backs alive, wreaking havoc in the opposition backline. The Welshman was more a creator than a scorer, with almost twice as many assists as goals, but if you play 952 games for your club, you’re gonna be up there on the goalscoring charts.
3. Denis Law – 221 goals
The only Scot on this list and, to this day, the only Scot ever to win the Ballon d’Or, Law was a supreme goalscorer.
Denis the Menace started his professional career in Huddersfield, then spent a year with Manchester before popping over to Italy to play for Torino in the 1961-62 season. Man United brought him back over to England in ’62, and the next 11 years saw Law write himself into United folklore.
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2. Bobby Charlton – 234 goals
You know all about Bobby Charlton. A kid from Ashington—a place so Northern that even Geordies are Southerners to them, with its own unique accent incorporating a rhotic ‘R’—who went on to win the World Cup with his big brother.
A prematurely balding man with a combover to give you night terrors, and a rocket of a shot that kept many a goalkeeper up at night. An ambidextrous king who was taking corners with either foot before Santi Cazorla’s parents could tie their own laces. Hell of a player.
1. Wayne Rooney – 253 goals
Wayne Rooney scored 19 more goals than Charlton for Manchester United, in 138 fewer games. Let that sink in. Granted, Bobby Charlton was more of an attacking midfielder, but scoring goals was very much Charlton’s thing, and Rooney wasn’t exactly an out-and-out number 9 for most of his Man United career.
Rooney was certainly appreciated in his time—he was a phenomenon from the age of 16—but we may not have realised quite how special he was in the grand scheme of things. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?