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

kaiser1 said:
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?
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Not sure what you mean by 'output' (I'm not even sure you know what you mean) but Garrincha scored 12 goals in 50 games for Brazil. Are we now saying that his dribbles meant nothing?

I say this with as little disrespect as possible but you really don't seem to understand how the game works, with this constant desire to downgrade dribbling. It is one of the most important skills in football.
 
Andrade said:
Not sure what you mean by 'output' (I'm not even sure you know what you mean) but Garrincha scored 12 goals in 50 games for Brazil. Are we now saying that his dribbles meant nothing?

I say this with as little disrespect as possible but you really don't seem to understand how the game works, with this constant desire to downgrade dribbling. It is one of the most important skills in football.
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I think his point is that a dribbling is only worth as much as the purpose it serves. In German there is an phrase called "breadless art", meaning something fancy looking, but ultimately without (much) profit and it immediately comes to mind when you for example watch the WC videos that were linked here to show off Hazard's greatness. Countless dribblings, but most of them in no mans land / away from goal / followed by a back pass that reset the tension or taking on one too many and very little in terms of genuinely advancing the attacking move in a crucial way.

And his lacklustre record in the CL and time in Madrid play right into that impression.
 
do.ob said:
I think his point is that a dribbling is only worth as much as the purpose it serves. In German there is an phrase called "breadless art", meaning something fancy looking, but ultimately without (much) profit and it immediately comes to mind when you for example watch the WC videos that were linked here to show off Hazard's greatness. Countless dribblings, but most of them in no mans land / away from goal / followed by a back pass that reset the tension or taking on one too many and very little in terms of genuinely advancing the attacking move in a crucial way.

And his lacklustre record in the CL and time in Madrid play right into that impression.
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All that conveniently ignores the unimpeachable fact that Hazard's dribbling led to greater shot creation than others who didn't dribble, e.g. Muller and Bruno.

Also very odd to cite the videos from the 2018 WC as evidence against Hazard when he won the silver ball for the tournament. His performance vs. Brazil in the quarterfinal is probably the single best game any Belgian has had for the national team in their history.
 
Interesting that multiple posters who are fans of teams in the Bundesliga share similar opinions in here. Perhaps its just the footballing culture and style is different to over here? With most teams defending high and near the halfway line, dribbling might hold far less significance when really a simple pass over the top would suffice to open up a defence? The most similar team over here to the German style is Liverpool, and it comes as no surprise that their two most effective players in terms of goal contributions (Salah and Jota) are fairly limited in terms of technical ability but the teams overall style maximizes their efficiency.

If you look at someone like Muller compared to Dennis Bergkamp, he statistically dwarfs him in assists. But no one in their right mind would think he's more creative than Dennis. The environment he's in (team style and league style) just allows him to maximize his numbers.
 
1905 said:
Interesting that multiple posters who are fans of teams in the Bundesliga share similar opinions in here. Perhaps its just the footballing culture and style is different to over here? With most teams defending high and near the halfway line, dribbling might hold far less significance when really a simple pass over the top would suffice to open up a defence? The most similar team over here to the German style is Liverpool, and it comes as no surprise that their two most effective players in terms of goal contributions (Salah and Jota) are fairly limited in terms of technical ability but the teams overall style maximizes their efficiency.

If you look at someone like Muller compared to Dennis Bergkamp, he statistically dwarfs him in assists. But no one in their right mind would think he's more creative than Dennis. The environment he's in (team style and league style) just allows him to maximize his numbers.
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Salah is not limited in technical ability, he has a great touch, great passer and can dribble, someone with limited technique doesn’t score he goal he scored against City or Watford.
 
Hansi Fick said:
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.
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What nonsense. You literally just argued or completely ignored the stats to say anyone with two eyes can see that, I for one have two perfectly working eyes and can not see for the life of me how someone comes to the conclusion Muller is levels above Hazard when it comes to creativity.
 
do.ob said:
I think his point is that a dribbling is only worth as much as the purpose it serves. In German there is an phrase called "breadless art", meaning something fancy looking, but ultimately without (much) profit and it immediately comes to mind when you for example watch the WC videos that were linked here to show off Hazard's greatness. Countless dribblings, but most of them in no mans land / away from goal / followed by a back pass that reset the tension or taking on one too many and very little in terms of genuinely advancing the attacking move in a crucial way.

And his lacklustre record in the CL and time in Madrid play right into that impression.
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Hazard was incredible in that tournament, Hazard doesn’t dribble for no reason he rarely loses the ball when dribbling and actually penetrates defences with his creative passing or can even score goals with both feet.

Maybe you just started watching him when he went to Madrid? But the Madrid spell doesn’t prove much other than any top player can lose momentum form and ability when hampered with consistent injuries.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
All that conveniently ignores the unimpeachable fact that Hazard's dribbling led to greater shot creation than others who didn't dribble, e.g. Muller and Bruno.

Also very odd to cite the videos from the 2018 WC as evidence against Hazard when he won the silver ball for the tournament. His performance vs. Brazil in the quarterfinal is probably the single best game any Belgian has had for the national team in their history.
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Exactly.
 
sherrinford said:
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.
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Creative in what way? Goals or assist or just the ye test dribble backwards to halfway and lay the 5 meter pass to the DM
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
All that conveniently ignores the unimpeachable fact that Hazard's dribbling led to greater shot creation than others who didn't dribble, e.g. Muller and Bruno.

Also very odd to cite the videos from the 2018 WC as evidence against Hazard when he won the silver ball for the tournament. His performance vs. Brazil in the quarterfinal is probably the single best game any Belgian has had for the national team in their history.
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The game where he had no goal, no assist no shot on target same in the semi vs France. I am sure Grealish must be the greatest player ever in the history of the PL
 
Righteous Steps said:
Salah is not limited in technical ability, he has a great touch, great passer and can dribble, someone with limited technique doesn’t score he goal he scored against City or Watford.
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Fairly limited not limited fullstop. And in comparison to players of similar calibre, yes (imo). That's why I brought up Muller who is the same in this regard. They might not be as good a footballer in a technical sense but they play in teams/leagues/styles that elevate them to the level of superior players.
 
kaiser1 said:
The game where he had no goal, no assist no shot on target same in the semi vs France. I am sure Grealish must be the greatest player ever in the history of the PL
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Yes? For those with more than 2 brain cells it's blatantly obvious that judging players on extremely rare scoring events is stupid and therefore more sophisticated metrics are required?

Good job disguising the idiocy of your position with a blatant strawman vis a vis Grealish, by the way.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
Yes? For those with more than 2 brain cells it's blatantly obvious that judging players on extremely rare scoring events is stupid and therefore more sophisticated metrics are required?

Good job disguising the idiocy of your position with a blatant strawman vis a vis Grealish, by the way.
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Those with more than 2 brain cells know an attacking player especially one of the front 3 is expected to score, when a game where he had neither a goal an assist nor shot at goal is the greatest game from an attacking player
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
Yes? For those with more than 2 brain cells it's blatantly obvious that judging players on extremely rare scoring events is stupid and therefore more sophisticated metrics are required?

Good job disguising the idiocy of your position with a blatant strawman vis a vis Grealish, by the way.
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The obsession with looking at the top line without context is what leads to things like people thinking Lukaku is world class, we should have given Batshauyi more chances and Steve Bruce did a great job at Newcastle.

A Bayern fan arguing based on stats is even worse. Mario Gomez scored nearly a goal a game for them in 11/12, they won feck all dropped him in favour of a striker who didn't score nearly as much but turned them into treble winners. They should be delving deeper than the top line even more than we do based on that alone.
 
At one point he was top 5 player in the world.

I saw him dominate liverpool and he didn't score or assist.

He's ruined by injuries. Anyone who downplays his prime did not watch football very much.
 
1905 said:
Fairly limited not limited fullstop. And in comparison to players of similar calibre, yes (imo). That's why I brought up Muller who is the same in this regard. They might not be as good a footballer in a technical sense but they play in teams/leagues/styles that elevate them to the level of superior players.
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He’s not fairly limited at all, he has great touch passing and can dribble better than most players, there’s no argument you can make for him being fairly limited and he is also nothing like Muller either. You won’t find Muller scoring the goal Salah scored against Man City or even the couple goals he’s scored against Chelsea as early as this season.
 
kaiser1 said:
Creative in what way? Goals or assist or just the ye test dribble backwards to halfway and lay the 5 meter pass to the DM
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Why do you keep repeating this as if it’s true you know there are metrics that can measure ball progression and Hazard would be right at the top on that list it’s almost has it you haven’t watched the player in his prime.
 
kaiser1 said:
Those with more than 2 brain cells know an attacking player especially one of the front 3 is expected to score, when a game where he had neither a goal an assist nor shot at goal is the greatest game from an attacking player
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You have a robotic way of looking at football maybe that’s the problem, I’m so glad the team who have actually been the most successful nation in the world are full of creative inspiring mavericks who don’t adhere to this way of thinking, football would be a far less beautiful sport if everyone only cared solely about efficiency and numbers.
 
Righteous Steps said:
He’s not fairly limited at all, he has great touch passing and can dribble better than most players, there’s no argument you can make for him being fairly limited and he is also nothing like Muller either. You won’t find Muller scoring the goal Salah scored against Man City or even the couple goals he’s scored against Chelsea as early as this season.
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You've completely missed the point here. I'm not saying they are similar in style I'm saying they are similar in the sense that they are not as technical as the best players in the world who they are compared with, but their teams maximize what they are good at which results in their unbelievable output. Whole point leading on from the idea above that you can't just look at assists to determine how creative a player is. Otherwise a player like Muller would be deemed more creative than Bergkamp, which he's obviously not.

For the first part I'll just agree to disagree. Don't want to derail the thread with Salah talk.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
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.
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Hazard has Benzema and has for the past 3 seasons with nothing to show. I know injury will be a convenient excuse before injuries Hazard showed nothing with Benzema.

He is simply not the type, he prefers to dribble into the net than make that pass. Hazards first instinct is to dribble and not to pass
 
1905 said:
You've completely missed the point here. I'm not saying they are similar in style I'm saying they are similar in the sense that they are not as technical as the best players in the world who they are compared with, but their teams maximize what they are good at which results in their unbelievable output. Whole point leading on from the idea above that you can't just look at assists to determine how creative a player is. Otherwise a player like Muller would be deemed more creative than Bergkamp, which he's obviously not.

For the first part I'll just agree to disagree. Don't want to derail the thread with Salah talk.
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Can’t agree Salah isn’t any less technical than any other player he’s compared with, especially in terms of wingers or forwards, but agree to disagree. Also Salah already had great output in his last season in Roma, you can go check, obviously he goes to a better team and coach his numbers naturally will improve.
 
Righteous Steps said:
You have a robotic way of looking at football maybe that’s the problem, I’m so glad the team who have actually been the most successful nation in the world are full of creative inspiring mavericks who don’t adhere to this way of thinking, football would be a far less beautiful sport if everyone only cared solely about efficiency and numbers.
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Those mavericks are remembered because they had output with their dribbles. That's why no one remember Denilson or Quaresma
 
kaiser1 said:
Those mavericks are remembered because they had output with their dribbles. That's why no one remember Denilson or Quaresma
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If it's all about the "end product" then why did you drop Mario Gomez after a 41 goal season?
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
: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.
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Muller has been better than Hazard overall not just at the moment Save for the random off periods in a career of over 14yrs
 
Dancfc said:
If it's all about the "end product" then why did you drop Mario Gomez after a 41 goal season?
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We have a Robert Lewandowski who is doing even more end product 45 goal season at the average. It's first week of April and Lewy is already at 45 goals
 
kaiser1 said:
We have a Robert Lewandowski who is doing even more end product 45 goal season at the average. It's first week of April and Lewy is already at 45 goals
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Still doesn't change the fact you changed a 41 goal forward for a 26 goal one and went from winning feck all to winning everything (ironically while Lewa was at your main competitors).
 
Dancfc said:
Still doesn't change the fact you changed a 41 goal forward for a 26 goal one and went from winning feck all to winning everything (ironically while Lewa was at your main competitors).
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And we couldn't wait to swap out the 41goal and 26 goal one for Lewa who had even more output than anyone in our history
 
kaiser1 said:
And we couldn't wait to swap out the 26 goal one for Lewa who had even more output than anyone in our history
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Yep sometimes you find a freak who can do both.

But doesn't change the fact if it was all about goals Mandzukic wouldn't have sniffed your team in the first place.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
All that conveniently ignores the unimpeachable fact that Hazard's dribbling led to greater shot creation than others who didn't dribble, e.g. Muller and Bruno.

Also very odd to cite the videos from the 2018 WC as evidence against Hazard when he won the silver ball for the tournament. His performance vs. Brazil in the quarterfinal is probably the single best game any Belgian has had for the national team in their history.
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What about the performance of the guy who won motm that day?
 
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kaiser1 said:
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
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So what?. It's such a pointless stat.
Willian outscored Hazard in the CL and nobody in there right mind thinks Willian is a better player than Hazard.
kaiser1 said:
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
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I never said he was a good signing. But to say top coaches are moving away from dribblers when a top coach just bought Grealish whose best attribute is dribbling is odd.
Klopp just signed Diaz too.
 
kaiser1 said:
Hazard has Benzema and has for the past 3 seasons with nothing to show. I know injury will be a convenient excuse before injuries Hazard showed nothing with Benzema.
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Saying "injury will be a convenient excuse" just makes it sound like you have a personal grudge against the man.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Saying "injury will be a convenient excuse" just makes it sound like you have a personal grudge against the man.
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I would say this is true of a few posters in this thread, and they all appear to be German. I'm not sure what he's done that is so offensive to their sensibilities.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
At one point he was top 5 player in the world.

I saw him dominate liverpool and he didn't score or assist.

He's ruined by injuries. Anyone who downplays his prime did not watch football very much.
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Couldn't agree more. I watched a lot of Chelsea and he absolutely was a level above everyone else on the pitch. He's one of those players that has a supreme talent. His only issue was that he had the same kind of mentality as Berbatov, in that he didn't have any overriding desire to score goals at any cost. He was more than happy beating players and getting assists, and like Berba he was so much better than everyone else technically that he could choose to do so. He's the only player i've seen in the modern game with an almost identical dribbling style to messi, his close control and low centre of gravity means he can beat players so easily and was an absolute joy to watch.
 
Andrade said:
I would say this is true of a few posters in this thread, and they all appear to be German. I'm not sure what he's done that is so offensive to their sensibilities.
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He committed the grave sin of being inefficient with his talent.
 
do.ob said:
He committed the grave sin of being inefficient with his talent.
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He wasn't though. He's highly regarded by the majority of people who've watched him play and understand the game.
 
Andrade said:
I would say this is true of a few posters in this thread, and they all appear to be German. I'm not sure what he's done that is so offensive to their sensibilities.
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Injury would have made sense if he was lighting the league pre injury

If Grealish got injured he can turn around to say "If not for injury.."
 
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