Goal wizard Ronaldo scales Peak 800 at 36

Star Portuguese and Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first player in history to notch 800 top-level career goals as he scored twice to guide his club to a 3-2 win over Arsenal in a Premier League match late on Thursday night.

With his performance, the 36-year-old now has a total of 801 goals from 1,097 games and looks good to score at a prolific rate as always, given that he has already notched up 12 goals in 17 appearances in all competitions since rejoining the English club from Serie A side Juventus this summer.

But despite the striker's superb showing this season, the club continues to languish at joint seventh spot on the Premiership table with just 21 points — six wins, three draws and five defeats in 14 games. Chelsea are the leaders with 33 points, while Pep Guardiola's Manchester City are second with 32 points.

In fact, if one adds Liverpool — who are on 31 points — as well, the top three are so closely bunched that the title fight would probably be a three-horse race. But with Ronaldo showing no signs of ageing — and his relentless pursuit of goals showing no sign of ebbing — Man United under their new coach, Ralf Rangnick, could be a transformed unit.

With the two goals on Thursday, Ronaldo now has scored a total of 130 goals across two stints for Manchester United. He has scored five for Sporting Lisbon, 450 for Spanish giants Real Madrid, 101 for Serie A top side Juventus

and 115 for Portugal. Ronaldo is also the all-time highest scorer in men's international football, in the UEFA Champions League and for Real Madrid.

According to the Football Association of the Czech Republic, Josef Bican scored 821 goals in official games, but many of those goals came for reserve teams and in non-official international games. Even Brazilian legends Pele and Romario claim 1,000-plus goals apiece, but many of the matches were friendlies, which brings down the numbers to 700plus goals each.

Lionel Messi has 756 top-level career goals — Argentina (80), Spanish side Barcelona (672) and French side Paris St-Germain (4).