Cristiano Ronaldo scored five goals against Granada, and Real Madrid star has more goals this season than 53 of the 98 teams in Europe's top five leagues

Reports of Cristiano Ronaldo's decline have been greatly exaggerated: The Real Madrid forward scored five goals against Granada, taking his tally in La Liga to 36 for the season - more than half of Europe's top teams.

Granada were torn to shreds by Ronaldo and his Real team-mates as the European champions won 9-1 at the Bernabeu, and their Portuguese talisman managed the first five-goal haul of his career.

His record of 36 league goals for the season overtook Lionel Messi's 32 strikes, and put him in the incredible position of having scored more goals than 53 of the 98 teams in Europe's top five leagues this season.

Ronaldo took some flak last month after a series of poor performances for Real, but his goalscoring has never waivered and even through a difficult period he managed six goals in 10 games, the sort of record most strikers can only dream of.

And his displays across the season have brought more goals than the likes of Newcastle United, Malaga, Borussia Dortmund, Torino and Lille.

The first three of his five goals against Granada marked the quickest hat-trick of his career, coming in just eight first half minutes. Another followed 16 minutes later, and his last came 35 minutes after that.

While Ronaldo overtook Messi on the goalscoring charts, the hat-trick - which could have been doubled - levelled the Argentine's record of 24 La Liga trebles. He almost matched Real legend Alfredo Di Stefano's 28 hat-tricks for Los Blancos in what was their biggest league win in 48-and-a-half years.

It all adds up to a brilliant Easter Sunday for the world's best player, and he posted on Twitter after the game, saying: 'Happy to have scored 5 goals with this excellent team work. Thank you for all your support.'

If the critics still see Ronaldo as greedy, it certainly paid off at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday.