Birthday-boy Ronaldo voted greatest ever Premier League player

Cristiano Ronaldo marks his 30th birthday with a nice gift after been voted as the greatest player to have graced the Premier League.

In an online poll conducted by Usurv for Press Association Sport, members of the public were given the choice of Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Ryan Giggs, Alan Shearer, Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp, Steven Gerrard, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira as candidates for the gong.

And Ronaldo was the people’s choice, finishing ahead of Henry and Giggs.

The Portugal international got 177 of the 747 votes cast a 24% share of the spoil.

Henry, the Arsenal legend was next in line with 18% of the votes while Ronaldo’s former team-mate Giggs came third with 13% of the votes.

French star Cantona bagged 12% share, as did Shearer.

Keane got 2% haul of votes but managed to edge out old foe Vieira who only took a one per cent slice.

Just over a quarter of those surveyed chose an 11th option – specified as ‘other/don’t know’.

Ronaldo came to English football in 2003 as a precocious talent at 18 from Portugal and under Sir Alex Ferguson blossomed into a footballer of repute at Old Trafford.

CR7, as he’s fondly called, scored 118 goals in 292 appearances for the Red Devils, fully justifying his early billing as “the new George Best”.

He moved to Real Madrid for £80 million in 2009 (as the reigning FIFA world player of the year) with three Premier League titles, a Champions League winners’ medal and an FA Cup.