Rooney has played many roles and almost all his career, he was hardly the top man in many seasons. He mainly supported others. He played everywhere in attack while Kane has been an arrowhead all his life. Again it will be like a Hazard vs Lewandowski comparison.
Eden Hazard | "It's time to enjoy life drinking beers"
- Thread starter Samid
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What other stats matter more than goals and assists for an attacker?
Rooney and Kane don't play the same role. A better match for Kane would be Lewandowski
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Yes, that would be yo boy Diego Costa. Hazard had the same output performance in the league in 2014. They sign Costa (just off the back of beating Neymar, Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and Co to La Liga title with 27 league goals) and Chelsea magically win the league. The impact is clear!
dribbles completed, number of free kicks won and assisting the assister apparently
Right, and what you've said here is why it's important to take a player's holistic contribution on the pitch into account, rather than player x scored more than y, player x is better. Hazard's role on the pitch was very different to most of the players he gets compared to, he was much more of a playmaker than a goalscoring inside forward.
Costa was excellent that season, they wouldn't have won it without him. Hazard was still clearly their best player that season, but opinions I guess and we can agree to disagree about who was the most important player.
What I won't ignore, is how bad your logic is here. "The impact is clear!" "Chelsea magically win the league" There's so much more to it than that.
Chelsea 2013 - 2014
Chelsea finish third, 4 points off 1st. They exit Europe in the semi finals stage. Hazard is their only player to hit double digits in league goals.
Chelsea 2014 - 2015
Fabregas joins, does brilliantly
Costa joins, does brilliantly (adds 20 league goals)
Matic has his first full season of English football, does brilliantly
Along with Courtois, you also have Terry, Cahill and Ivanovic having excellent seasons
Lastly you have Hazard, who goes on to win PFA player's player, Prem player, the FWA award, and the club's player award.
There was nothing magical about any of this. The club had a good season, and then went out and added some much needed creativity in midfield, an elite striker to improve on Chelsea Torres and an aging Eto'o, and some (especially second half of the season) excellent performances from a talented keeper and intelligent Mourinho moulded backline.
It's easier to get an assist playing with someone like Sergio Aguero than it is playing with an average striker.
Etoo'o was one goal away and they had 2 others players close to double figs. I'll give Hazard 2015 and Costa 2017
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The fact that you think these things don't matter is quite telling. It's as if you think goals and assists exist in a vacuum, completely separate from everything else that happens on a football pitch.
It's not about what stat matters more or most. I'm trying to say that if you do a thorough statistical analysis of Kane and Rooney, and Rooney is ahead in every metric other than goals (I'm not saying this is actually the case, just giving it as a hypothetical example), then who is the better attacking player?
Again, you're ignoring that Costa threw a fit when he wasn't allowed to move to China for massive money in January 2017. This was the root of why Conte sent him the "thanks for the seasono" text. Costa's form fell of a cliff whilst he sulked during the latter part of the year. He scored 5 league goals from February onwards. Kante won player of the year and both he and Hazard were very obviously more important than Costa.
This also would render your argument that "most seasons Costa is THE key player" for winning the league - by your own admission he's down to 2/4, and one of those 2 is factually incorrect by literally every measurable.
The fact that he's using 2017 makes it pretty clear he didn't watch that season. Costa was practically on holiday from January onwards whereas Eden was excellent for the entire campaign. I still can't decide whether that or 2015 was his best season for us. Absolutely brilliant in both. The statistics merchants in here would probably think his best was under Sarri because he had the most G/As.
Agreed - Costa was easily better for us in 14/15 compared to 16/17 but was unlucky to do his hamstring for the run-in. Still doesn't mean he has a patch on Hazard in either campaign though.
2015 was even more dramatic in the second half of the season.
Forget the title, if it weren't for Hazard and Courtois top 4 would have been in jeopardy.
Some attackers don't bother with dribbles they want to release the striker as quickly as possible e.g Thomas Muller and he is very effective at creating goals, A player like Bruno too doesn't do much dribbles but he creates goals
The end goal is to create goals and assists not how you do it.
Two of the players you mentioned dont dribble because they cant. Hazard dribbled, and created chances and scored goals.
He also wastes possession an also lot and is an absolute liability against high level opponents.
This. Dribbling is one of the most important skills in football and very difficult to do effectively, especially at this kind of level.
But I guess the poster you are replying to is German and they don't produce many skilful dribblers and this may explain his prejudice against them?
I mean, you can't argue with Germany's incredible success in football history, but they are bested by a country that has produced thousands of magical dribblers, so it shows you that there's more than one way to skin a cat.
I'll say Muller and Bruno are more effective at creating goals than Hazard despite not having the ability to dribble
At the end creating goals is all that matter if you create it by dribbles won't get you additional accolades over one who does it with a simple pass
IMO dribble is a very inefficient way of creating chances which is why top coaches and teams are moving away from dribblers
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Just like Hazard lose a lot of possession trying to dribble and has proven to be a liability at the top level given his 9 CL goals from open play with the aimless dribbles. Bruno has 5 CL goals playing in a Man utd team that's probably worse than any team Hazard ever played in
This makes no sense, with respect. It's not an either/or proposition.
Muller creates more goal chances than Hazard. The only thing Hazard beats Muller at will be dribbles.
The difference between pre 2007 and post 2007 Ronaldo was eliminating needless dribbles from his game and he turned to be a goat
Thats why Pep just bought Grealish.
Id say they aren't.
Hazard created more chances in his 7 seasons in the premier league than any other player, Hazard can do both.
Hazard can also score great solo goals by dribbling past players.
Hazard didnt lose possession lots by trying to dribble though, Hazard was an elite dribbler with a very high success rate. His last season at Chelsea he had a 80% success rate.
I can see we're not going to agree here. I can point to virtually every legendary attacking player in history (Maradona, Pele, Cruyff, Garrincha, Best, R9, Messi etc) and explain that they all found dribbling to be very necessary and not 'needless'. But you have your own theories (that are not in keeping with accepted knowledge of the game) so it's a bit pointless.
Yes I’ve already explained to him or stacks, that nearly every single top all time great player in the history of the sport was a great dribbler.
It's four goals from open play in the CL actually. The 9 goal figure includes penalties.
Grealish has been a very pointless buy at this point and everyone can see that he is just a waste of space to draw fouls. Of City's attackers he probably ranks the least in output
All these greats backed up their dribbles with output. Messi dribbles got the 2nd most goals in CL history
Hazards dribbles got 4 career CL goals. Obviously Messis dribbles got more output while Hazards dribbles got what?
That's because while all these greats excelled at dribbling forwards, Hazard's superpower was dribbling backwards. Not his fault that the opponent's goal is the other way.
Hazard was great on his day but overall very inconsistent and tended to vanish. He also got very overrated by virtue of being the "best player in the PL", which was probably never really true and which also didn't mean much as back then the PL was somewhat poor in quality at the top end.
This is not true. Muller at his creative apex in 19/20 averaged 5.43 shot creating actions per 90 - this is 99th percentile and obviously elite. In 20/21 he averaged 4.81 SCA/90 (97th percentile). Bruno in 19/20 in the PL averaged 4.40 SCA/90 (88th percentile) and in 20/21 averaged 4.88 (95th percentile).
Eden Hazard in 17/18 averaged 6.65 SCA/90. in 18/19 he averaged 6.40 SCA/90. If Hazard had ever had a teammate as good as Lewandowski he'd be rightly recognized as the more creative player between him and Muller, and Bruno is clearly a tier below.
That is completely ridiculous. Müller is several tiers above Hazard in terms of creativity and always has been, anyone with eyes should see that.
The reality is that if Hazard ever had better teammates, he couldn't get into the starting 11 as he can't now.
I mean, numbers don't lie. Muller has benefitted from playing alongside world class players in cohesive Bayern teams that dominated - Hazard has always played in reactive Chelsea sides for various managers yet still created more shots.
Muller is a fantastic player but him being several tiers above Hazard is just the latest in a long line of wild takes this thread has produced.
This is even worse than the nonsensical posts obsessed with stats and 'output'. It should be obvious to anyone who watched both that Hazard was a more creative player.
Only if you have no clue about football.
Like, say, their respective national teams? Where Hazard has averaged more assists than Muller over his career? Shot creation is spotty beyond the major tournaments but Hazard has Muller beat there as well - 4.84 SCA/90 for Hazard versus 3.96 for Muller.
Again, Muller is a tremendous player and is certainly the better player at this moment. He also was not better than peak Hazard and arguing otherwise is ridiculous.
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Dude, you were the one who made the hypothetical about how Hazard would produce playing with a Lewandowski caliber player. Well, it's not quite Lewa, but he's got Benzema in his team now. Where is he? What is he creating?
Like, say, their respective national teams? Where Hazard has averaged more assists than Muller over his career? Shot creation is spotty beyond the major tournaments but Hazard has Muller beat there as well - 4.84 SCA/90 for Hazard versus 3.96 for Muller.
Again, Muller is a tremendous player and is certainly the better player at this moment. He also was not better than peak Hazard and arguing otherwise is ridiculous.
Comparing him with Müller, go wash your mouth out with soap.
Injured? And past his prime? You're the one who said Muller has always been better creatively which is nonsense. Hazard at his peak was one of the 3 most creative players in Europe along with Messi and Neymar.
Unless you're using some other measurement of creativity that doesn't involve creating shots for yourself and your teammates, you are arguing that the sky is green and not blue. There is no factual basis for what you are saying.
The clueless ones are the those who think football is played on a spreadsheet (and with only two columns!).
I'm actually very surprised anyone could be of this opinion. Hazard is an obviously creative attacker whereas Muller, while great, is not that type of player.