I actually think he might do quite well at Chelsea but I'm also of the opinion I'm glad we are not in for him. Like everything people will say the extremes. The reality is that it's usually somewhere in the middle.
Gonzalo Higuain | Chelsea Player
- Thread starter RDCR07
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There is a bigger chance he will fail than be sucessfull, but from their point of view, better for Sarri to work with someone who he already knows and trusts than keeping going with Morata. It was a quick fix solution.
You'd think if Serie A was so easy to play in for older forwards, Ronaldo would have surely scored at a higher rate than last season. The fact he hasn't outlines the obvious over simplification, and the palpable PL bias.
There are players there that would point blank not succeed in other leagues, but are able to because it is slower paced. It doesn't mean that every player that moves there is going to score at twice the rate, just that players with a skillset that would not function in different leagues can still score in Italy.
Ronaldo has moved to a new country and formed new partnerships and still has 14 league goals and 5 assists. It makes sense he would score less when he has been adapting to a new league at the age of 33.
I do also think the Premier League is superior, sure, but that's not the main reason I think Higuain might struggle. It's certainly not such a big raise in level that it would prevent him from still scoring goals.
If Higuain was this all talented player this thread is making him out to be he could of played with Ronaldo. RvP could of.Yeah, I am sure if we had Van Persie we would have told Ronaldo to feck off.Ronaldo is the reason, we had to get rid off Higuain. It does not say anything about his quality other than that he is not Ronaldo. Van Persie would have been forced out as well.
Giroud used to score 15-20 most seasons for Arsenal actually.
Just hasn't made a huge impact at Chelsea and will probably be moved on in the summer.
They have Dybala and Mandžukić as well. Hard to fit all four of them into one side. Plus Higuain was Serie A's top earner. No brainer really.
Yes that's been the established viewpoint of PL-centric fans and pundits for very long, but the evidence is extremely thin. On the flipside, the reasons it might be made up by pundits are obvious - Sky want their viewers to think they're getting the best value for their subscription, watching the best of the best, the most competitive, the fastest, whatever it is that needs to be said to get people to love their product. We can pretend that the media don't have any role whatsoever in shaping our views, or creating stereotypes that then set in with lots of confirmation bias nudges, but to me that's quite boring.
It's more interesting to see the evidence on both sides and make a fair assessment. In your case, you only provided examples that fit the PL-centric view. Can you think of any examples where the opposite is true, or have you heard any players (that have played in both leagues) say that Serie A is more difficult than the PL in any way?
What is the established viewpoint? That the Premier League is superior? Recent results in Europe show that to be the case. My view isn't PL-centric (I don't think we have the best league, that still goes to La Liga right now) but I do think that the standard overall is higher than it is in Italy. The gap isn't huge and both leagues are top level football, but I do believe a gap to be there.
Again, I'm not one for the Sky view that the PL is all there is and it's the bestest and most entertaining league around. If anything right now it isn't all that competitive with City/Liverpool clearly ahead of the pack and last season City ran away with the league entirely. It's not the perfect league, but I'd put it as comfortably the 2nd best in the world right now in terms of quality, and would guess that in the next 5 years or so it will overtake La Liga due to the financial factor, but that's only a prediction.
I know Conte said Serie A was the most difficult, but that was after his league win, I do wonder if his opinion changed after the second season. I don't think my examples fit a 'PL-Centric view', it's just that from watching both leagues there's a definite difference in style. Older, slower strikers like Toni or Quagliarella can still score goals in Italy due to the pace of the game, but these players would struggle badly to make an impact in England. It's also true that players like Salah might score more in England because with the game being played at a faster pace, there's more space to play in when you break and they can take advantage of that.
I think that accounts for why quite a lot of players coming in from Italy fail to have the same impact in England. It's a physically more demanding league to play in (busier schedule, more intensity, referees are often less whistle happy) whilst probably being less tactically demanding than Italy, so again a certain type of player that thrives in one environment can fail in the other. I don't think the PL is generally the place to go for someone like Higuain at this point in his career, but we'll see if he proves me wrong.
By PL-centric view, I mean the view that 90+% of people on here have. Even for the people who watch lots of CL football and some European league football, the majority of the football they see is through the lens of English commentators, English pundits, and an English style of football. That can't not influence how you view the game, and you don't have to look far to see the UK broadcasters talking up "their" football ahead of "others".
The established viewpoint is that the Serie A is a haven for old fogies, unlike the unforgiving Premier League. Despite obvious examples of the opposite being the case, year after year.
The thing is it's hard to prove what you're saying is true. Toni, di Natale and others did score a lot of goals in their later years, but they also peaked in their later years - for both club and country. We never got a chance to see players in the same position come to the PL and fail. It's entirely possible that's because your hypothesis is true: they wouldn't succeed, so PL managers don't buy them. It's also possible that they just preferred staying in Serie A, though. If they came over during that time, it's not unthinkable for me that they'd score a lot of goals.
An awful lot of people in the late 00s were saying that Zlatan would fail in the PL, and yet by the time he got here in his mid 30s, clearly past his peak, he was a clear success. How many past-it forwards have went from the PL to Serie A and tore it up? I can't think of any off the top of my head. That's not to say that lots of them flopped either, it's just there isn't a whole of evidence of great strikers in their 30s changing leagues. Which is why I think it has more to do with the stereotypes and the constant partisan messages, than any real basis in (substantive) fact.
In the league? Giroud never scored 20 goals for us in the league. In fact he only got above twenty goals for the entire season twice in five seasons.
His performances at Chelsea are par for the course.
Do you think the likes of Luca Toni and Fabio Quagliarella would be scoring goals at the same rate in the Premier League? Genuine question. There's a reason that in Italy players are able to play in to their mid 30's no hassle and a lot of them 'peak' at that level, it's not because they're fitter than their counterparts from other leagues, it's because the league is slower paced and therefore they can play on for longer. I watched Luca Toni play when he was scoring, he ran like he was going through cement. Luca Toni would not have gone to the PL in his mid 30's and scored a lot of goals.
Zlatan was one of the most talented players of his generation so was able to do well in the PL, but he still suffered a massive drop from his Ligue 1 form and suffered a lot due to a lack of pace. His technical ability allowed him to score a good amount of goals, but IIRC he had a pretty poor conversion rate and was often at fault for slowing down play. Zlatan did not tear up the Premier League. The better question is how many strikers in their mid 30's are still able to compete for top scorer in the Prem? It doesn't really happen. Even the greats like Van Persie, Drogba, Rooney etc slowed down massively in their early 30's, there are far more examples of older players thriving in Italy. It's less demanding on their bodies because it's less physical, slower, you play less games and get a break. That's not coming from sky sports stereotypes, that's coming from me watching Serie A plenty in the last few years (haven't had much of a chance this season, but I used to do a lot of betting so watched games from pretty much all the major leagues).
Stereotypes play their part and it's not as exaggerated as Serie A being a haven for old fogies, but I wouldn't say that there's no basis to the idea that older strikers (or players in general) can be more at home in Serie A. I'm going to go ahead and guess you watch both Serie A and PL games, would you not say on average that premier league matches are more intense and played at a faster pace? Again, it's not necessarily that I think the Premier League is superior and harder to play in, just that I think it favours different skillsets to Serie A. Off the top of my head I can think of Lichsteiner coming in this season and being dreadful, or Patrice Evra going off and being pretty successful for Juventus despite looking done in England. I'm sure there's more, though I don't think in general that Italy would be a preferred move for most PL players.
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Its quite clear Serie A is not at the same level as they were on the 80's or 90's, its just a different league compared to the EPL, but they still have good players there.
Saying Higuain is technically superior to RvP is absurd. Can’t believe anyone could even have this opinion, when RVP was near perfect technically. In terms of strikers of his generation it’s not only Suarez that betters Higuain for his all round game, Aguero does too as does Benzena Zlatan and of course RVP. Better dribbler better touch just all round a better footballer, Higuain simply couldn’t manipulate a ball the way RVP could, and If were talking about all roundness, heck RVP wasn’t even a striker to his late 20’s he played a number of years at Arsenal playing on the wing or as a 10 because of that extraordinary technique.
Mate Serie A has one top team that’s all it’s not on the level of the PL, not close.
I never said otherwise, I still rate Serie A pretty highly, I just think that a certain type of player can be a success there but wouldn't be in the Premier League.
Yeah all competitions.
12/13- 17 goals
13/14- 22
14/15- 18 (was injured for 3 months that season)
15/16- 24 goals
16/17- 15 goals.
17-18- Scored 7 for Arsenal in his half a season before move. Since he's joined Chelsea he's scored 10 goals in all competitions so way below the numbers he was producing at Arsenal.
Of course today's Serie A is an easier league for strikers than the PL, who actually disputes this? Doesn't mean the Serie A is shit, it's just not as fast-paced and strong as the PL. No shame in that.
I don't know. I don't think there's a lot of evidence either way. That's my whole point. The reality is you haven't been able to provide any evidence to prove it. If there was a simple answer to this question, you'd have gave me one:
The fact that there isn't a simple answer, suggests that there isn't a simple way of describing the differences between the two leagues or the role they play on different kinds of players. Yet the only conversations that are ever had about the Serie A vs. the PL are simplistic ones, repeating the same talking points about pace. Yet as far as I can tell there's no causal link between the pace of the league and age that you can consistently find in all players. It appears true for some, and not for others. The PL-centric view leads us to remember the former and ignore the latter. And when it comes to the latter, as with Zlatan, people try and look deeply into the difficulties he faced as opposed to looking at the surface-level success, while that never happens in reverse. The reasons for that seem obvious.
To be fair thinking about it now i'm slowly coming round to the idea of Higuain being better than RVP.
Looking back at their careers i think Higuain will go down as having a better career.
Hes scored more goals and won a lot more as well.
Looking back at their careers i think Higuain will go down as having a better career.
Hes scored more goals and won a lot more as well.
Did you watch Napoli-Liverpool or Inter-Tottenham in the group stages of the Champions League?
English teams made it through but claiming they weren't on the same level is ridiculous.
If Serie A has one top team, how many does the Premier League have?
Agree with you.
From what I saw of that Inter side they'd struggle to finish top 6 in the Premier League. Managed to get one of the flukiest wins I've ever seen against us after being outplayed in their own backyard despite us also playing poorly, then did feck all else. They failed to qualify despite us basically self sabotaging ourselves for the first three games of the group.
Napoli were really impressive at home to Liverpool tbf, but then should have been smashed to bits at Anfield where they were utterly inept. I wouldn't say there was a different level but English teams in general have the edge imo.
Hum, I have to jump here. Don't agree Arsenal is better than Inter. The current United yes, Chelsea and Spurs better, but not so much.
The biggest reason Inter didn't make it through was the schedule being unfair to them with Spurs playing an already qualified Barcelona in the last game. Napoli deserved to get out of that group, outplayed both Liverpool and PSG overall. If Napoli looked inept at Anfield, I'd love to know what you'd call Liverpool's performance at the San Paolo. Right refereeing decisions and it would have been a different story. Anyway, the point isn't that ones are better than the others, it's that their level isn't that different.
Don't get me wrong, the Premier League has more good teams but people who don't actually watch Serie A shitting on it without any idea of what they're talking about is just annoying.
While Hazard is at Chelsea, Higuain will thrive. I'd be very surprised if they don't go on to finish third after this signing. I can see things changing quickly for Chelsea and Higuain if they lose Hazard in the summer though.
He will boss it at Chelsea. Watch this space.
There's a lack of evidence because old Serie A strikers aren't flocking to the Premier League to try their luck. Why would they? It's pretty rare that a player will switch the league he's comfortable and scoring goals in when he's 35 or whatever, they're probably aware themselves it wouldn't work. The likes of Aquilani, Lamela, Osvaldo, Jovetic, Maicon all struggled badly though and suffered an upturn in the amount of injuries they were getting, possibly because of the increased physicality.
The likes of Kalinic and Fazio were also able to build successful Serie A careers despite being woeful in the Premier League. The latter in particular was constantly exposed at Spurs and mostly a joke at the club, then moved to Italy and looked a reliable defender. Shock horror when he came up against the pace and intensity of Liverpool in the champions league he went back to looking utterly incompetent. That kind of defender can work in Italy, just like late Evra and Lichsteiner did, but when exposed to the more intense and faster English game regularly they will struggle. Players in general seem to play on longer in Italy.
Zlatan went from scoring 38 league goals in France to 17 in England, and he's your poster boy for 'older slow strikers can succeed in England' ? The man had 2 more goals in the league than Josh King. Qualiarella only need score 5 more for the rest of the season to match him in Italy. He was one of the best players of our generation full stop and whilst slow extremely physically fit, yet clearly dropped down a level in terms of productivity when playing in England. He also did have struggles regardless of whether you want to ignore him, as already pointed out his conversion rate was very poor and he was often accused of slowing down attacks.
The pace of the game is generally slower in Italy than it is in England, that's just from a simple eye test. You can disagree if you like, but that's my perspective from watching both leagues. There's more of an emphasis on physicality in England and more of an emphasis on trying to play high octane football.
We had a goal wrongly chalked off vs PSV, so regardless of the unfair scheduling they shouldn't have gone through if all is fair. They didn't deserve to qualify based on performances and luck was massively on their side at home to us and Barcelona, no way did they deserve 4 points, the two teams who performed the best qualified.
Napoli were pretty good and Liverpool were woeful at the Sao Paolo, but I honestly think Napoli were even worse at Anfield. Liverpool were through on goal every 5 minutes and despite needing just one goal to make it very hard for Liverpool to qualify, Napoli were barely able to threaten. They played some good football, looked bright at times but ultimately failed to qualify .. again.
I agree there's not a different level, both leagues are top level football. There's not some huge difference and Serie A isn't an alien league, but sometimes subtle differences can make a significant difference.
Maybe. I haven't watched them that much this season in fairness, only in Europe where I thought they performed woefully in every game. Managed to get a couple of solid results whilst still looking shit and boring.
In fairness though, we were crap in the CL group games as well. I think in that group only Barcelona played good football across all the games.
I am not a huge fan of Spalletti also. But they have a couple of interesting players there, always difficult to translate that compared with English teams, but I am sure they don't have a worse squad than Arsenal.
Who are you referring to? Garbage players like Gabbiadini?
I don't care about going back to 2 decades ago when players like Zola,Ravanelli,Di Canio,Desailly,Gullit,etc. came in the english League during their '30s and succeeded, but recently I remember a guy like Torreira having a great impact in England, I struggle to remember a player that was an established star in Italy and then failed in England, while there are thousands of failures over the decades of players that came from England to Italy (even recognized "world class" players for anglo-centric historians)
He is not adopting the anglo centric point of view. Its just the fact today its easier for clubs in England to recruit from Serie A than the opposite.
Can't do any worse than Morata so good signing for them.
Torreira has been a great fit, he's very well suited to the league. I'm not saying that all imports from Serie A are going to be flops. I don't care about what has happened 'over the decades', Serie A used to be clearly the best league in the world, that has changed. Although the likes of Shevchenko and Veron were certainly 'world class' players that flopped after moving to England.
The likes of Cuadrado, Lamela and Jovetic were all rated highly in Italy and then flopped when coming to England. Lamela has managed to build a career here but it took years of work under Pochettino, he arrived a shrinking violet and was turned in to a seriously tenacious presser. He had to adapt his game big time to play in England. It's very rare that top players will leave England for Italy, so examples of that happening are few and far between .. most Italian clubs can't pay the wages. I do think English clubs are also wary of recruiting from Italy and would prefer to shop somewhere more similar in style, like Germany.
Anyway, my opinion isn't that all players from Serie A will flop here, some like Salah can absolutely thrive if they have the right skillset, even improve on their performances to Italy. Some players are just more suited to different leagues and styles. Torreira is a great example of this, he's absolutely suited to the physicality and pace of the English game so it's no surprise he hasn't struggled. On the flip side, I've been unimpressed with someone like Jorginho who is technically superb but sometimes struggles with being pressed.
True. I rate some of their players pretty highly .. Icardi is the obvious one but I've always liked Perisic and thought he would do well in the Premier League. Skriniar, De Vrij and Handanovic are good too.
They were just horrible to watch in the CL. They beat us at home but did nothing for 88 minutes of the game before Icardi came up with a moment of magic. Again though, it's not like we were too much better.
Napoli and Inter were dead even with Liverpool and Spurs in the CL, both groups were decided on goal difference. On that basis, how many good teams does the PL actually have?
Even Juventus while having a very good squad for that level I struggle to watch them playing during 90 minutes. Clearly La Liga and the EPL are on the pole position, while Serie A and Bundesliga come next.
Again, though, all you're doing is looking for evidence to fit your belief, not assessing all of the evidence collectively. At no point did you try and find any evidence that contradicts your view. And your view is undoubtedly influenced by the football you're exposed to most often, and the conversations that surround it.
All I can say is after watching a ludicrous amount of football 5+ years ago, I dont share your definition or perception of the significant differences in pace of the game across leagues. The differences are there but subtle, hard to generalise, hard to describe, and hard to draw inferences from. That ludicrous amount of football includes watching every game of every World Cup / Euros winner since 1958, every European Cup final and semi finals since 1959, and a random assortment of league games from di Stefano through to Rivaldo.
I don't say that to present myself as some kind of football guru, or wear it as a badge of honour - I think it's a very weird thing to do and knowledge and understanding aren't that closely correlated, in my experience. But it does give you a different perspective on modern football and the discussions that surround it. Particularly listening to commentators in the 60s describe the football.
My view might be totally wrong but it isn't from a position of ignorance, essentially. And I'm not trying to prove a point, Zlatan isnt my poster boy, etc. I was just probing the discussion and offering a different view. Each to their own! Look forward to Higuain testing your hypothesis.
I think if you look at the record of Spanish sides in Europe, and the almost total dominance they've had over it, you have to put them clearly at the top for now. I do think that will change in the coming years but for now they're comfortably first.
Then yeah I'd agree, Premier League second with Bundesliga/Serie A battling for that third spot.
Jovetic and Lamela were both injury prone, Jovetic didn't recover from that in fact now he's lost as a reserve in a mediocre side like the actual Monaco. Cuadrado didn't have a chance under Mourinho, basically Mou at that time made such bad mistakes with players like the colombian, Salah (who rebuild his career in Italy to become a star in England), De Bruyne,etc. so I wouldn't say it's all Cuadrados fault that he didn't succeed in Premier League. But still none of them were top players from Italy, they were surely promising but still not proven yet (especially Lamela).
Having way more money and more power (no FFP b*llshit excuses used to not spend like clubs like Inter,Milan,Roma are using for years now for not buying big in the market) than italian clubs is a clear fact from at least a decade.