Eden Hazard | "It's time to enjoy life drinking beers"

What is amusing is not far down in this sub section we have a Kane vs Rooney thread where it's (rightly) almost widely agreed Rooney was better despite the fact Kane statistically smashes him.

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.
 
I get what you're saying and I agree, but this is the whole point. Kane doesn't actually statistically smash Rooney. He has a better goal to game ratio. That is one stat. What about the dozens of other stats? If these guys are gonna use stats to try and denigrate Hazard, they've at least got to be a bit more thorough about it, beyond basic goal contributions.

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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Goals are obviously massively important, but I actually disagree with the assertion that the majority of the time the league winners top goalscorer has been their best player. At least in regards to the PL and certainly in recent history, there's plenty of cases where that hasn't been the case.

Back to the topic of Hazard though I don't think anyone would suggest he wasn't Chelsea's most important player during their title wins under Mourinho and Conte though?
There are people in this thread using G+A stats to suggest otherwise

And such people are confusing the importance of scoring goals (which is the way you win games) with the importance of the goal scorer, ignoring all the events in a game that contribute to a goal being scored.
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!
 
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.

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.

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!

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.
 
dribbles completed, number of free kicks won and assisting the assister apparently

It's easier to get an assist playing with someone like Sergio Aguero than it is playing with an average striker.
 
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.
Etoo'o was one goal away and they had 2 others players close to double figs. I'll give Hazard 2015 and Costa 2017
 
dribbles completed, number of free kicks won and assisting the assister apparently

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.
 
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

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?
 
Etoo'o was one goal away and they had 2 others players close to double figs. I'll give Hazard 2015 and Costa 2017

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
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.
 
dribbles completed, number of free kicks won and assisting the assister apparently

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.
 
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.
 
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.
He also wastes possession an also lot and is an absolute liability against high level opponents.
 
Two of the players you mentioned dont dribble because they cant. Hazard dribbled, and created chances and scored goals.

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.
 
Two of the players you mentioned dont dribble because they cant. Hazard dribbled, and created chances and scored goals.

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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He also wastes possession an also lot and is an absolute liability against high level opponents.

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
 
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

This makes no sense, with respect. It's not an either/or proposition.
 
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
 
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

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.
 
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

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.
 
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.
 
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

It's four goals from open play in the CL actually. The 9 goal figure includes penalties.
 
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.

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
 
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.

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?
 
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.
 
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

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.
 
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.
 
That is completely ridiculous. Müller is several tiers above Hazard in terms of creativity and always has been, anyone with eyes should see that.

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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.
 
The reality is that if Hazard ever had better teammates, he couldn't get into the starting 11 as he can't now.

:lol::lol::lol:

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.
 
:lol::lol::lol:

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.
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?

Comparing him with Müller, go wash your mouth out with soap.
 
Dude, you were the one you 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?

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.
 
Only if you have no clue about football.

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.