Can people stop bringing out this comparison as some sort of performance vs output holy grail.
Any team would score far more goals with the Spaniards as opposed to having the likes of Lampard. Those guys literally amped up the offensive productivity of their teams more than anyone else.He did it once well, but there were plenty of other times where Hazard destroyed us, and other top PL teams.
My last sentence was supposed to be "my answer is Salah" not the answer
So it should also be relevant that the manager was a selective divisive thundercnut who has a history of alienating multiple talented players out of his teams which has had nothing to do with their performances. The last thing I'd ever consider while discussing two players is what Jose fecking Mourinho's opinion is about them.
I like the fact that the only posters in this thread who thinks Hazard is better are Chelsea fans.
Well if you read my previous post I said Salah shades it due to his performances in the latter stages of the UCL.
Mourinho usually gives a couple of players complete freedom, and they're the best in the team. He picked Hazard over Salah, though ofcourse it could be said that Salah peaked later in his career than Hazard. I still think playing in a well oiled machine like Liverpool has helped Salah a lot, and a prime Hazard was the better player but there's not much between them to be a debate.
Hazard's productivity has always been criticized here. This isn't something new. In his prime he was a great dribbler and someone who will create a lot of chances but ultimately he never reached the same heights of many top class wingers. People here used to talk about this whenever the discussion about Real bringing him to replace Ronaldo arise, that he'll never, ever manage to replace Ronaldo's productivity or take his place in the team.
Which goes to show just how G/A stat obsessed everything is in the modern day. To stick to Liverpool for another example, Firmino is a pretty crucial glue between the midfield and Salah/Mane yet he gets mocked because he doesn't put up the raw numbers despite the fact he's a big reason Salah and Mane do/can so easily. Switch the Brazillian for an out and out poacher (even an elite one like Haaland) and they will be significantly weaker as a unit.
Mo Salad indeed!He's got an amazing goals record, but he started with 32 in his first season, then dropped massively to 19-22 in the next 3 seasons.
Fair point and in fairness to him, the season he scored 19, he made 3 or 4 less appearances that the one before and after, in which he scored 22. Give him those extra 3 or 4 games and he'd probably have got 22 in 3 successive seasons.
Firmino's role can be played by any other striker who's more of a teamplayer and doesn't care about being the main scorer of the team. Benzema had no problem playing a similar role in Madrid for Ronaldo.
Salah, Ronaldo, Shearer, Kane, Suarez, Phillips, Henry and Van Persie.
Thanks for the information, so 8 players including only 2 wingers, Salah and Ronaldo.
If Lampard had just let Didier take 1 pen, it'd be 9!
Still, only 2 wingers out of those. The rest are all strikers. It shows that Salah and Ronaldo were different class to the rest of PL wingers when it comes to productivity.
Sure, both great players, no doubt about that.
Has Harry Kane's ultra slow start made him disappear from history too? -_-
But tactics have substantially evolved, you can't compare a modern winger with an old winger, Salah's direct comparison with historical players should be strikers or similar wing forwards.
Nah, he scores a decent amount with his right foot and has some quite impressive goals with his right in his tally
Ronaldo scored 31 goals in the league in 2008 ? The fact that from 2008 to 2021 the only wing who managed a similar goals tally is Salah shows that it's not easy for PL wingers at all to be such ridiculous goal scorers for their team. We're not comparing them to players from the 90s. We're talking about the last 15 years of football or so.
I agree with much of what you're saying but is it really correct to describe Salah as a winger? He's much more of an inside forward and his average position is almost always the furthest up the pitch for Liverpool.
