Van Persie played 48 games that year though, compared to Suarez' 37. When their ratios for goals were fairly similar, RVP was always going to have more goals in this case since he had CL football too. Suarez' league record, which is the most easily comparable, was effectively better since both players had a very similar number of goals, but he had less games. Although both were fairly similar in their best seasons. I'd agree on that, not too much to separate them.
Who is better, RVP or Suarez?
- Thread starter Sir A1ex
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Van Persie played 48 games that year though, compared to Suarez' 37. When their ratios for goals were fairly similar, RVP was always going to have more goals in this case since he had CL football too. Suarez' league record, which is the most easily comparable, was effectively better since both players had a very similar number of goals, but he had less games. Although both were fairly similar in their best seasons. I'd agree on that, not too much to separate them.
To be fair that would largely be down to his age now. Not that he'd have gotten £75m back then, but if he'd been at his very best and at Suarez' age with a long contract, I think he could've attracted a fee somewhere in the range of £50m, depending on a number of factors.
I wouldn't say so, if you compare the best season of Suarez, Henry and Ronaldo in the premier league Suarez comes out top in my opinion, Ronaldo almost certainly would have had a better season if he stayed, he was only 24 when he left and over the course of 4/5 seasons Henry was better but if you compare just their best one season I honestly think Suarez was the best out of the three.
But can you ignore the fact that Suarez scored a ridiculous amount against bottom half teams? And that he had 6 extra weeks to prepare, no European football? Though I agree with your last sentence, obviously.
2011-2012 season RVP was better than Suarez
2012-2013 season RVP was better than Suarez
2013-2014 season RVP was not better than Suarez +
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Outcome: Suarez is the better player? Yo no comprendo.
Talking about stats
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...vs-luis-suarez-breaking-down-the-stats-battle
Looking at those stats there's not much between them, really.
Ronaldo's 2007/2008 season was incredible to the point where he was the best player in the world, having scored a superb number of goals without always even being in a central striker role. As good as Suarez' most recent season was, I don't think it was quite that good to the point where he was the best player in the world, even if it's more difficult to achieve that accolade now because of how incredible Messi generally has been.
RVP scored 3/4 pens that season too and Suarez didn't take any last season. Suarez also got 12 league assists compared with RVP's 9 but I think I'm right in saying Van Persie used to take corners for Arsenal, or at least right sided corners.
See you guys are basically using the games Suarez missed through his own idiocy in his favour. There's no guarantee he would have had a brilliant start to the season, or a bad start, but the fact is he was missing. His team couldn't use him, he wasn't available for selection because he bit a player or had his racist thing or whatever, and it happens every season. That has to go against him, you can't just ignore that, irregardless how he plays for the rest of the season. I'd rather van Persie in 11/12, who was available in every game, and scored the 37 goals, rather then Suarez who was maybe marginally better, but played in around 10 less games.
You have to take it all into account over the course of a season. Just like rvp's injuries go against him now, you can't ignore them.
He really wasn't, you're forgetting how good Ronaldo was. Ronaldo scored 31 in 34 coming off the wing, not playing as a striker, and then 42 in 49 in all competitions compared to Suarez 31 in 37. And that's just using goals. We all know Ronaldo was so much more then that, he was on a completely different level to Suarez.
We're on the same side here, I'm saying you can't just ignore the fact that Suarez misses 5-10 games a season through suspension pretty much. It has a huge impact on his team always and I'd rather a striker who had a slightly lower goal ratio, but was available always to impact the game, rather then one who misses 10 games but catches up to the rest of the goalscorers by racking in the goals vs norwich.
Maybe I'm trying my best not to look at it with my United bias and underrating Ronaldo a bit, it was 7 years ago so my memory is a little hazy but I think in the league Suarez was very very close to what Ronaldo was in 07/08 if not a tiny bit better. Suarez wasn't the best player in the world last year and Ronaldo was after the 07/08 but in fairness to Suarez he has a prime Ronaldo and Messi to compete with, Messi was only 20 in 07/08, Kaka had a good season but I think it's fair to say the competition for the Ballon D'or has been much greater these last few years.
That is an extremely poor way to determine who is the better player. When did I ever say that he would have had a brilliant start to the season? All I've done is judge him based on the games that he has featured in, which is really all that one can do.
I'd obviously rather have a player for a whole season than one that's going to miss five games. That's not the point of this thread. All we're doing is determining who is the better player. And to do that, you need to look at how they've played. Suarez at his peak was better than Van Persie at his peak, both in terms of goals and in terms of assists. That's all there is to it really.
Edit: however, Suarez now needs to prove that he can do it at Barcelona.
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It really isn't a bad way to look at it though. You're comparing them over the course of a season, and one of them scored 7 more goals. Did he do anything special to be available to play more games? Yeah, he didn't bite somebody. It's just like if a player plays 20 games and has an incredibly good scoring rate in those 20, but then gets injured. Too bad, but you can't say he's as good as somebody who scored 10 goals more even though he played less games and has a better scoring rate, because he's just not on the pitch to be able to have an impact. It's how I see it at least. RVP scored more goals then Suarez, 7 more in fact, not exactly marginal, so IMO he's just a better goalscorer, or was at his peak.
What's the difference if a player is just suspended for a game versus a player who just loses a bit of form? At least one can still impact the game, even if it lowers their scoring rate. Getting suspended because of your own stupidity goes against you as a player and is a huge negative IMO, because it just leaves the whole team short on their best player for however long he's out, all because of the player being an idiot.
But you also can't ignore the fact that RVP misses 50% of his career through injuries. He can't help that, but Suarez can't help himself either, it really is a mental condition, because his behaviour doesn't benefit him or the team, yet still he can't stop.
@Eboue said it doesn't matter what Suarez's level was like in Holland but I dissagree.
Personally I think Suarez' last season was roughly as impressive as some of his spells at Ajax. He scored 35 goals for Ajax in 32 matches. Dutch league teams in general weren't much quality, but scoring 35 in 32 against Dutch teams or scoring 33 in 31 when 80% of the goals were against bottom half Premier League sides isn't really different.
For example: I think Suarez had pretty much the same level in Holland as at Liverpool last season, because when was ripping the Dutch league, people said he wasn't showing it on a higher level. I was in the stadium for Ajax' Champions League match vs AC Milan and Suarez and this is what he did to Nesta. This was when I knew for sure he was a top bracket player:
So all in all I think my estimations of Suarez are pretty accurate and I just don't see how his 2013-2014 season is as impressive as RVP's 2011-2012, so that's why I don't understand why Suarez is being perceived as having shown a higher level of play than RVP.
Suarez by a country mile currently. RVP at his peak v Suarez, probably alot closer..
It really is, with the exception of about 4/5 teams the rest are mostly championship standard.
Suarez is a complete Fool. Agreed.
But once again, it doesn't matter how much time you play. It's how you play in the time you're given. That's the only proper way to judge a footballer. You have to incorporate context within your analysis.
Isn't there quite a long list of mediocre players who had great goal records in Holland?
C'mon now chaps, Suarez is obviously comfortably better.
RVP He scores against top class opposition enough said.
Fair enough, if you want to completely ignore injuries, suspensions and other reasons that they miss games, then yes, Suarez probably had a marginally better season then RVP in 11/12. He is a better player, I'm not saying he isn't. What I'm saying though is that I can't simply ignore how much a player misses, because IMO one of the main reasons Ronaldo and messi are so good, is because they were always fit. And I mean always. Never got suspended, never injured. If I judge a player over an entire season, I can't use Suarez missing 10 games because he bit somebody in his favor and against Van Persie, even though Van Persie was playing constantly and having an impact on games, just those games slightly ruining his goalscoring rate. At least he was there though, which Suarez wasn't, and those games he always misses is a huge negative for Suarez and his quality as a player. No use having a world class player if he misses a quarter of the season through injury or suspension. This goes against rvp too, however he was fit constantly between 2011-2013 so there's that.
I'll stop reading there
Oh yeah sure... I'm talking nonsense again.
Except for the fact that, I'll take a random pick, Feyenoord in 2008/2009 season. They finished 7th, so they were a mid table team.
They had players like Roy Makaay (Bayern), Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, Ron Vlaar, Karim El Ahmadi (Aston Villa) John Dahl Tomasson (AC milan) Leroy Fer (Norwich), Danny Landzaat (Wigan Athletic), Michael Mols (Rangers).
So a team that finished 7th in the Dutch league 2008/2009 probably had more quality than say Norwich City had this season. And Suarez was scoring for fun against teams like that. And then you have to take into consideration that at Ajax, Suarez had no Gerrard, Sturridge, Sterling around. So please tell me why it wasn't a fair comparison?
And let's not forget Holland made it to the semi's with 5 or 6 eredivisie players this year, like I said it's not really a quality league, but nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be.
Except for the English top 8 teams, Eredevisie and Premiership are pretty interchangeable in terms of quality and now here it comes: Suarez scored mainly against bottom half opposition.
http://thinkfootball.co.uk/archives/14145 So that's 19 out of 23?
Fair enough bud.
I don't think this subject is worthy of a discussion honestly. You seem pretty convinced, so am I. Let's leave it there.
Oops.
Something tells me that isn't a random season.
Feyenoord were a mid table team in the same sense we were last season, just because we finished 7th doesn't make us the 7th best team. The players you named which Feyenoord had that season were rather way past their prime or very young.
Holland made it to the semi's with Dutch league players playing for the 4/5 best teams in the league, not the bottom 13 teams which are all below Premier League standard.
Suarez scored a lot of goals in 09/10 against teams who wouldn't even be in the premier league so you can't compare the two seasons.
Scratch what I said. You were clearly right about it being harder to score in the Eredivisie than in the EPL (or it being similar?).
I'm now running away.
Just to be clear
Well go and look at all the players that played in Holland in 2008-2009 and in 2009-2010 to see who exactly Suarez scored against and whether my pick was random or not.
Feyenoord is pretty much Liverpool by the way, last time they won the league was in 1999, so not really comparable to us.
And it's true he scored a lot of goals against sides that wouldn't be in the PL in 09/10. My point was, he also scored a lot of goals against sides that would surely be up to PL standards. That's why I posted that Suarez vid, he also showed it against AC Milan and for Uruguay around that time.
So basically in every match, on every level whether Champions League or Championship, he was the best man on the pitch. That's why I feel last season was pretty comparable to his 09/10 season.
Wait. Are you arguing that Suarez is better than Van Persie?
No I'm arguing that I have a pretty accurate view on how good Suarez actually is and how good he has performed over the years and I don't think it's on the same level as RVP has shown/showed, although it's very close.
But he didn't, in 09/10 he scored 18 league goals in just the 6 games against Waalwijk, VVV Venlo and Roda, he only scored a few goals against the tops sides. Suarez is a far better player now than he ever was in Holland, you can't really read to much into his scoring record in Holland when Bas Dost, De Jong, Alfonso Alves ect.. have had similar goal scoring records as Suarez did.
Suarez is a lot better. I know many United fans don't want to hear this, but RVP is not among the top strikers in the world currently. Maybe it has to do with his age, because in 2012/2013 he was exceptional, but he really didn't do much this year and also besides the Spain game in the WC.
Suarez did score quite a lot against the big teams the season before last.
The previous season, not the current season Suarez went on 2 runs where he scored once in 8 games and 1 in 5 games.
Van Persie also had participated in the goals and some assists to his name.
Also this season Suarez missed 5 games, but was on the field for like 99% of the time, he was substituted like 3-4 times with 5-10 mins until the end of matches.
In the season you quoted Persie started off the bench on several occasions and was subbed off on couple of occasions in the 60-70th minute mark. In total I think he played less compared to Suarez.
I know this won't prove a great deal, but there are probably worse ways to spend a Friday night than watching 'em:
RvP 2012/13:
Suarez 2013/14:
RvP 2012/13:
Suarez 2013/14:
Suarez is the better player, I find it very hard to argue with this. A year ago I'd have gone RVP and I believe the majority of people would do the same, but Suarez reached new heights the past season, while RVP had a difficult season. I still hate him, an absolute twat of a player, but I would never deny he is a very good player. But still nowhere near Messia/Ronaldo level.
I'm pretty sure not all of those 48 games are starts, while Suarez started in all 33 games and was very rarely substituted.
He had a better world cup than Suarez. He was injured for most of last season.
And that's also why I was trying to compare his 2013-2014 season to his 09/10. Do you see the same patterns? Being top scorer of one of the best teams in the country, excelling against every team, but scoring the bulk of his goals against lower league sides and not winning the League to name a few.
He did score a lot of vital goals against better/top sides for Ajax though and like I said already, it was very clear that he was going to be a world class player. Whereas with Dost, De Jong, etc. it was clear they were never going to be on that level.