Juventus talisman Cristiano Ronaldo has been ranked as the fifth in-form player in European football as per the list compiled by Football Critic. Football Critic has initiated an algorithm to determine the top 50 most in-form players in European football and Cristiano Ronaldo was in the top five. The list, which is updated every Monday, takes into account match ratings, competition weighting and performance bonus over the last 20 games (1800 minutes).

For the latest compilation made earlier this week, Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi was named the most in-form player after a run of four goals from his last two games in the league.Messi has hit form at the start of this year after an okay start to this season by his usual high standards. The Argentine national team skipper scored two goals each in the last two league games, which happened to be away from the Nou Camp.

Lionel Messi scored two goals to help Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 3-2 away from home in their rescheduled week one clash in La Liga before repeating the same feat of netting a brace in the next game, a 4-0 league win at Granada in what was the last outing for Barcelona in the Spanish La Liga. Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann scored two goals each for Barcelona during that Granada game.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have enjoyed a great rivalry for over a decade and the two greats have shared 11 of the last 12 Ballond'Ors to show their dominance. For Ronaldo, he has not started the new year badly with a return of three goals in his three games this year. He netted a brace in the 4-1 home win over Udinese at the start of the year before failing to score during the all-important 3-1 away victory over league leaders AC Milan. He returned to form in front of goal by netting the third goal as Juventus beat 10-man Sassuoloat home last weekend. On the aforementioned list, Cristiano Ronaldo was fifth behind the quartet of Neymar of PSG, young Borussia Dortmund striker ErlingHaaland, Bayern Munich hitman Robert Lewandowski and the great Lionel Messi in that order.