Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski is on course to have a better season than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have ever had in their careers.

The Poland striker's four-goal blitz against Red Star Belgrade this week took his league and Champions League tally to 26 this campaign – in just 17 appearances.

This equates to a goal roughly every 57 minutes, which is about seven minutes quicker than Messi's best ever season in La Liga and Europe in 2012-13.

Robert Lewandowski's incredible scoring form continued on Tuesday night against Red Star

Lewandowski is in lethal form and that has carried over into the Champions League

Lewandowski celebrates after scoring his fourth goal of the night at the Rajko Mitic Stadium

Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo's best minutes-to-goal campaign came in 2013-14, where he scored every 73.6 minutes for Real Madrid that year.

The Poland captain has bettered the feats of two of the greatest players to ever play the game despite being 31 years old - an age which normally implies the slowing down of a footballer's career.

In 2012-13, Messi scored 46 goals in 32 La Liga matches as Barcelona won the league title with 100 points.

The Argentinian also found the net eight times in 11 Champions League matches that year, but the Catalan club went out at the semi-final stage to Bayern Munich in a crushing 7-0 aggregate defeat.

Cristiano Ronaldo continues to score at a good rate but not close to his level at Real Madrid

Lionel Messi is still massively relied upon at Barcelona and will be a big miss once he leaves

HOW HE STACKS UP Robert Lewandowski (2019-20 - Bayern Munich): Games: 17 (12 Bundesliga, 5 Champions League) Goals: 26 Minutes per goal: 57.26 minutes Lionel Messi (best season – 2012-13 – Barcelona): Games: 43 Goals: 54 Minutes per goal: 64.25 Cristiano Ronaldo (best season – 2013-14 – Real Madrid): Games: 41 Goals: 48 Minutes per goal: 73.6 Advertisement

A year later, Real Madrid's Ronaldo also had the best season of his career in terms of minutes per goal, scoring 31 goals in 30 La Liga appearances.

While Madrid finished the league season in third place that year, the Portuguese forward added 17 goals in just 11 Champions League matches to win 'La Decima' for Carlo Ancelotti's side.

And despite there being 24 Bundesliga matches remaining this season and the knockout stages of the Champions League still to come, Lewandowski is in such lethal form that he is capable of helping Bayern mount a serious challenge for both sets of silverware.

In completing this goalscoring feat, Lewandowski has also joined Messi and Ronaldo in becoming the third player to score 25-plus goals in their opening 20 appearances of the season.

The 31-year-old has scored in all but one of Bayern Munich's Bundesliga and Champions League games so far this season and has scored more than one goal in seven of the 16 games in which he has scored.

Lewandowski's free-scoring performance in the 6-0 win in Belgrade on Tuesday night was only his second hat-trick of the season, his first coming in a 3-0 win away at Schalke in August.

His rapid quadruple was managed in just under 15 minutes which rivals the striker's 2015 feat when he scored five goals in nine second-half minutes in a 5-1 Bundesliga demolition of Wolfsburg.