Earth to Cristiano Ronaldo: You are letting your opportunity to reclaim the Ballon d'Or in 2016 slip away quickly.

The New Year has been putrid for Real Madrid's superstar, as he not only cannot find the back of the net, but is struggling to make any real impact on the pitch for his team. And now that he has turned 30, the conversation has started to shift toward when his inevitable decline would begin. Does his current slump indicate that his decline is already underway?

He has played a total of seven games since the calendar changed to 2015 and has picked up as many red cards as he has assists. He is scoring at a rate of 0.57 goals per game, a far cry from the close to 2.0 goals per game he was putting up early this year but also below his career average of 0.68 goals per game (that stat is brought down by his early career numbers, which were far from his most recent historic data).

This is the second straight season in which Ronaldo struggles at the start of the calendar year. A year ago he scored just four goals in his first five matches and also picked up a red card on Feb. 5 against Athletic Bilbao. What do those two years have in common? Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or. Whether it is a question of complacency, only Ronaldo knows; but it is a rather disconcerting trend for Los Blancos.

That said, after Ronaldo struggled out of the gate a year ago and was benched for his red card, he went on a fierce run in which he scored 11 goals in nine straight games.

But here is the trend that is frightening for Madrid fans: a year ago, Ronaldo's longest goalless draught ended at two games (which were coincidentally at the start of the year). After that, he never went more than one game without a tally.

This year, however, he has already experienced four streaks of not scoring in two straight games. What is worse, two of those streaks have come in the last month alone, something that does not bode well for Real Madrid's iconic star.

How bad is Ronaldo's slump to start 2015?

The goals are down and whether or not Ronaldo is getting enough shots on goal is a function of opposing defenses shutting him down effectively. There are areas that he can control and some that he cannot. So how successful has he been in those areas?

Ronaldo's career average key passes per game is 1.9 and this season he has averaged 2.6. A year ago, he averaged 2.3, so he might have been due for some regression. But never as poorly as he has in the seven games. He has a total of six key passes in those games, good for 0.85 per game. There should be some regression back to the mean in forthcoming games, meaning that it should create more opportunities for his teammates to score and could even set him up for some better scoring chances.

In the slump, he has been passing at close to 80 percent accuracy, which is around his career average. Ronaldo has resorted to passing more often this season, which is an indication of his increased key passes. But more passes also leaves the space for more mistaken passes and that could hurt his overall percentage.

That said, Ronaldo has been passing a lot less often in this slump. He has averaged 31.3 passes per game in six of those matches (the first Atletico Copa del Rey match was not included because he came on as a sub). That is not only below his career average, but also below his average this season. Even if one takes away the 26 passes he managed in the game in which he received a red card, his average is still a paltry 32.4. This suggests one of two things: either Ronaldo is simply not getting the ball as often in these games or he is electing not to pass as often.

This season, Ronaldo has averaged about 53.27 touches per game in matches where he has played close to 90 minutes. During his slump, he has averaged about 50.8 touches per game, signifying a decrease in the amount of touches per game. Not a huge difference, but a noticeable one.

So is then he being more wasteful with possession in this stretch?

If he were electing to take on the ball by himself instead of passing, then it is likely he would be dispossessed more often or shooting more often. And yet during this streak he has averaged being dispossessed just 1.5 times per game, a huge difference from the rest of the season when he has been dispossessed a career-high 2.8 times per game.

As per shots per game, he is actually taking far fewer. He has an average of 5.7 shots per game this season but has only averaged a total of 5.0 in the slump (again the 28-minute Copa del Rey appearance is not counted in these totals). He has averaged exactly 1.66 shots on target per game in that stretch, including three matches in which he failed to get a single shot on target.

Ronaldo is, however, averaging more poor controls and touches per game in this slump than he has all season. He is averaging 1.5 poor touches per game overall, but since the start of 2015, he has averaged two poor touches per game. This should result in high dispossession rate, but it isn't.

So what is causing the slump? Could it be the team?

The team as a whole is not playing up to its own standards. Madrid has endured a record of five wins, one draw and three losses since the start of the New Year, and with Ronaldo, it has limped to a more mediocre record of three wins, one draw and three losses. It is by far Madrid's worst slump of the year.

So which is it? The chicken or the egg? Is Ronaldo's poor play thus far, which is actually not far off from where it has been for most of the year, hurting the team or is the team's mini-slump hurting him in some way? It might be a combination of both and it is unlikely that Ronaldo's play continues at this poor rate. Does anyone really believe that the superstar, who just months ago was scoring at almost a pace of two goals per game, is going to score just 0.5 goals per game for the remainder of the season? While the former scoring rate was historically unsustainable (even for Lionel Messi), there is no way that Ronaldo regresses to a scoring rate that is far worse than his overall career rate.

So, calm down, Ronaldo fans. The superstar will be back. How good will he be? That is a different story altogether.