Cristiano Ronaldo voted the best EPL player ever

Babalola Tomiwa

Over five years after leaving the English Premier League for the Spanish league, Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo has been voted best player in the history of the English Premier League.

The Portugal international, who's the current FIFA Ballon d'Or holder joined the Red Devils in 2003 from Sporting Lisbon for a fee of £12m.

Ronaldo spent six-year at Old Trafford scoring 118 goals in 292 appearances and won his first World Player of the Year in 2008 after inspiring United to a third European Cup triumph.

He was brought to Old Trafford by Sir Alex Ferguson as a raw 18-year-old in 2003, and departed for Real Madrid in 2009 with three Premier League titles, a Champions League winners' medal and an FA Cup.

He won the first of his three FIFA world player of the year awards in 2008 before departing England and the Portuguese forward's extraordinary success has continued unabated in Spain, following what was at the time a record £80m transfer.

Ronaldo has plundered goals and broken records at a breathtaking rate and developed a keen rivalry with Barcelona's Lionel Messi, the pair now firmly established as the leading two players of their era.

In an online poll of 1,000 members of the public, the choice offered was between Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Ryan Giggs and fellow luminaries Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp, Steven Gerrard, Alan Shearer, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira.

Ronaldo snared 177 of the 747 votes cast for one of the chosen star names, a 24 per cent share once the fence-sitters and contrarians are removed from the calculations.

Next in line was Arsenal favourite Henry, with 18 per cent of support, followed by Ronaldo's former team-mate Giggs - the most decorated player in the league - on 13 per cent.

French maverick Cantona, the key on-field figure in establishing the Red Devils as the Premier League's early dominant force, took a 12 per cent share, as did the division's record goalscorer Shearer.

Keane, who sneered at prawn sandwiches and brought both brawn and brain to Ferguson's best teams, might be unimpressed by his two per cent haul of votes, but he still edged out old Arsenal foe Vieira who took a one per cent slice. skysports