Sure thing, he grew old prematurely but so was his career. He didn't start blossoming at his 22-23nd like a lot of players, he did it a lot faster and played waaaaay over the normal minutes you would get as a 17-19 year old. So his career years just came a few years earlier to the normal prospects. At 32, probably every striker gets old, but he got old badly. Though, when you have a career like that, you should let it rest and accept that your time has come. As you said: he is falling and it won't get any better as the months go buy and the multimillion dollar players keep landing at Madrid.
In a way, I do fear the same for Messi for instance, certainly with his growth hormone shizzle in the past.