Aguero was abit more skillful individually but overall they both were not as consistent as their talent suggest. Of course in last 2 seasons Aguero was better in number of games - however, if one look close, his goals STATS are all around a few games when he was on his best form. For example" this season 15goals /19games looked impressive, but he only scored in less than 7games <= 50% participation of the total games
It's a bit of a sly dig at UEFA from me if anything, hahaha. They never like to give players in the Premier League recognition.
I also find Hazards personality quite soft, Mourinho has actually came out and said he is too nice, well in nicer words ironically. He looks for the pass rather than the shot, he should take much more advantage of his ability. The Swansea home game for instance, about 3 times in the second half he dribbled through the defence and could of had a good open shot on goal, had he of scored any of those they all could have been contenders for goal of the month. However again too many side cutting, just in and out and then the defence are all back in position and the keeper has more time.
Mourinho said a lot of things. He also said recently that the referees don't give Hazard the protection and free kicks that they hand out to other players. Mourinho said right before the camera that he should show his disdain (and dive to the ground) more often.
He says a lot of things for a reason. It's the way the game is the F.A. have made it this way. Alex Ferguson bullied the referees for years and the F.A. got themselves into a right mess with the Fergie situation. Mourinho was saying that because of the Bardsley challenge on Hazard when the Stoke players were going out of their way to purposely injure him. As a manager and one like Mourinho who puts winning games over a clean reputation he is going to want to put pressure on the referees to ensure that doesn't happen again. I'll admit it's not the cleanest thing but I agree with it.
http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/...-of-the-manchester-united-referee-conspiracy/ [use search function, CTRL + F, and search for Ferguson] ?
Exactly. I don't buy conspiracy theories either, it's just simple, Fergie was a winner. The F.A. have no one to blame but themselves for giving him that much power in the first place, they punished him way to late and when they did punish him it hardly even seemed relevant and they had to punish every other manager so it just didn't work out. A lot of fans are annoyed with Mourinhos comments, and I don't blame them. I hated Ferguson when he was in charge, I would probably hate Mourinho if I was an opposition fan. He moans and complains but it does work. Chris Foy was terrified to send Gary Cahill off when anyone in the world could see it was a clear second yellow for a blatant dive. Just how it works in football, if you want to point fingers, point them at the F.A.
He's still performing well despite injuries last season and he still made an impact in Cities title win. I've seen Alexis since he was killing at River and Aguero since he was killing at Independiente. Overall Aguero has been the more consistent player. Even at Atletico I saw Aguero put in amazing performances against Barca. Back when Dinho was still there in the match me scored a crazy bicycle kick Aguero owned the entire match. He was like 19 I think. I watched it in a bar in NYC with the Barca Peña there and Aguero was making a joke of Puyol.
I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure Aguero has the best goals per minutes ratio of anyone in Premier League history. Some accolade if I'm correct.
This is sometimes said by Barca fans (and other fans) but the actual tracked "big chance conversion" stat doesn't back this up. His conversion rate of 'sitters' is comparatively, next to his team and league colleagues, rather OK. When I posted that link with the statistics I received as reply "I trust my eyes more" Aguero, a striker, scored only once in his career more than 20 league goals in a season (23 goals in 2011-12), and that was with 3 penalties back then. http://www.whoscored.com/Players/14260/History/Sergio-Agero http://www.whoscored.com/Players/25244/History/Alexis-Snchez [7.30 vs 7.45] Sanchez needed a longer trajectory for arriving where he is now (Aguero was transferred for 23 million euros back in 2006 to Atletico). For overall career Aguero is maybe the better player but as far as I'm concerned this current season was at stake. In this current season there is maybe not a huge performance gap, but Alexis is performing more different things in my opinion. He has something like 134 goals and 103 assists in his career. At the World Cup he wasn't performing as a free role goalscoring 'luxury player' either.
you're right Sergio Aguero earns best minutes-per-goal ratio in Premier League history with a goal every 113 minutes after second half Liverpool strike BEST SCORING RATES IN PREMIER LEAGUE HISTORY Player ==========Goals==Mins per goal Sergio Aguero ====54 ==== 113 Thierry Henry ==== 175 ==== 122 Ruud van Nistelrooy= 95 ====128 Javier Hernandez ===37 ====130 Robin van Persie ====134 ===135 Edin Dzeko========46====137 Daniel Sturridge=====58====138 Luis Suarez========69 ====139 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...tio-Premier-League-history.html#ixzz3PmoMcFHy
If Aguero managed to stay fit for an entire season it would be interesting to see how many goals he would score given he takes penaties and is in one of the top teams, unfortuntately he seems to miss dozen or so league games a season and spends a few games getting match fit on his return.
But its that kind of stuff that makes Hazard a prime candidate to win the next non-Messi/CR7 Ballon d'Or. Because Hazard can still get better. Cesc, Costa, Aguero can only stay the same or go downhill from here.
I agree with this, I think had Hazard had a good WC he could have been right up there n the voting for the 2014 award. He had a very very quiet WC by his standards especially given Belgium reached the quater finals. Had he had a strong showing off the back of a good club season he would have I think been in the top ten and a possible top five. A few big games in the CL this year and how far Chelsea can go will determine where he finishes this year.
I honestly think the people and media were a fair bit too harsh on Hazard. It is true that he was far removed from his best and most exciting display, but ppl failed to appreciate what he did offer (while also, in my opinion, playing under a sub-par manager and given 'peripheral' role from the beginning). I'll give a more thorough response later but I start with some interesting tweets. Eden Hazard has completed as many take ons (2) as the entire Argentinian side, so far. #BEL pic.twitter.com/Q7xHtaJ5cq— Squawka (@Squawka) July 5, 2014 Eden Hazard: Has made at least 3 more interceptions (5) in the first half of #ARGvsBEL than any other player on the pitch #bel— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) July 5, 2014 13 - Only three players (Messi, A. Sanchez and Di Maria) completed more dribbles than Eden Hazard in the group stage (13). Tricky.— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 1, 2014 13 - Eden Hazard has successfully completed all of his 13 dribbles in the World Cup. Unstoppable.— OptaJohan (@OptaJohan) June 22, 2014 Eden Hazard completed 8 take-ons vs #RUS, the joint-most managed in a single game at the World Cup (Emenike vs #BIH). pic.twitter.com/UByVq1rOtD— Squawka (@Squawka) June 22, 2014 http://twitter.com/OptaJean/status/485467861356662785 http://twitter.com/WhoScored/status/482237082480680960 http://twitter.com/Squawka/status/480775653625970688
Regarding winning Ballon d'Or, Hazard simply isn't a big enough name yet. To many people, he's top class and very familiar, and rightly so, but for many, he is just another good midfielder playing for one of the good clubs. He's not exceptional in anyway, not unique. One could say, for example, that Neymar is exceptional in his style, which help him to be more wider known, but being unique doesn't mean you're better than non-unique. In a near future, Hazard might be more unique and certainly better known. But I think that won't come through him changing personally that much, more like Chelsea needs to win a boatloads of titles for Hazard to be considered the number one world-wide, and even that might not be enough. He has to compete for the top scorers of the world, even if Chelsea would win this and that, and we know how important top scorer statuses are in Ballon d'Or. I reckon Hazard is bound to end up high in the votings for many years, but from there to actually winning the vote is a looooong way, especially if you score as little as he does. High likelihood that he's gonna have an exceptionally illustrious career with zero Ballon d'Ors, imo.
I'll dissect (roughly) Hazard his performance in two parts. Note: OPTA says he played 368 minutes, while Squawka (uses OPTA too) lists him with 371. Productivity & accuracy Hazard his peripheral role shows itself in the shot attempts. He had only 7 shot attempts in 371 minutes (1.70 per 90 minutes). 3 of them came from outside the box. 75% of the shots were accurate (= on target), which is actually not bad. Hazard had 42 passes per 90 minutes, and created a reasonable 3.18 chances per 90 minutes (2 assists in 5 games). 82% of his passes were accurate and 80% of his passes in the opposite half were accurate ones. And it are not just the short balls; according to WhoScored data also 79% of his long range passes were accurate (9 long balls tried). Furthermore, all three free kicks he took are deemed as 'accurate' as well. In the total tournament he attempted 26 dribbles, 20 of them successful (4.85 successful dribbles per 90 minutes). As such, he completed 77% of his take ons. He also won 11 fouls (2.70 fouls won per game). He had 1.3 unsuccessful touches per 90 minutes and dispossessed 2.3 times (per 90 minutes), which is not great but also not mediocre or bad for a player of his position. Not unsurprisingly with his height, he lost all the 5 aerial duels he attempted (he's in good company with Messi and Gotze there). What positively stands out for him (in passes, dribbles, shots etc.) are the accuracy and success-rate of his moves. That in itself doesn't say much when little tangible is produced, though. Work rate & defence According to the FIFA website he ran 42.1km in 5 games. On a per 90 minutes base it was 10.2km, which is what he can reasonably do in a game. 44% of this distance was covered when his team had not the ball. Hazard had three tackles in 371 minutes (100% success rate), 19 recoveries (which is high), 6 interceptions, conceded 6 fouls, 0 defensive errors. He didn't block opposition shots, but he did block 2 opposition passes a match. My conclusion He was made peripheral, and could have done better, but it was not as bad and quiet as some have made out. The accuracy of his actions was actually rather good. Given how good De Bruyne had been (assist and goals leader for Belgium), and how quiet Hazard tended to be during the qualifiers, a more central and leading role couldn't be expected. http://www.optasports.com/ http://www.optasports.com/ http://www.whoscored.com/Players/33404/History/Eden-Hazard
Not sure I agree with Hazard needing to be up there with the top goal scorers to win it (although he would need to score some more than he does presently), Ronaldo and Messi are up there as top scorers and often so way out ahead of anyone else hence being at therefore being at the top for the votes. However if Aguero or Suarez or another out and out forward had a 50/60 goal season instead of a 30 goal season they would probably win, the thing is no one else but Messi adn Ronaldo seem to post those figures. If you took out Messi and Ronaldo then next you have the likes of Neuer, Robben, Lahm, etc... Ribery last year, at the top of the votes, all of whom are not top scorers and no where near. Also if you go back to pre Ronaldo and Messi and past winners like Kaka, Nedved, Ronaldinho etc.... they scored important goals and had great seasons but never the number of the likes of RVN or Henry for example who never managed to win (Henry might be a bad example as he certainly deserved it at some point).
Yeah, I agree that Hazard doesn't need to be on par with top scorers to win it. But he'd do himself a favour (voting sense) by scoring more. When Messi and Cristiano slow down in scoring, I reckon that opens up more chances for the top attackers in Real Madrid and Barca to score more than currently. For example, I think Neymar is perfectly capable of putting in quite high number seasons. Neuer, Robben, Lahm and Ribery are indeed what could happen to Hazard: up there, but still not winning it. I'm not saying Hazard won't win it, or that it would be a surprise to see him win it. Just saying if you're a non-flashy not-top scoring guy whose NT is unlikely to win a major title, chances are you can be super brilliand and end not winning it. Case in comparison Ronaldinho - his style is more vote-catching than Hazard's, even if the style wouldn't decide the level of play.
Not sure why you compare Hazard with Messi at the WC, but it's clear that Messi put up much better numbers. It's not even worth comparing.
The problem for Neymar is that once Messi slows down, Barca probably won't be winning anything! At least not that first year or two that he doesn't produce. There's going to be an adjustment period just like when Ronaldinho became less effective and when Xavi + Iniesta did. I also think Hazard will get more goals in the future. Not a huge amount, but enough. And in any event, when guys like Eto'o and van Nistelrooij were top scorers it wasn't seen as vital for winning the Ballon d'Or. Unless you're 20+ goals ahead of the pack voters will basically just vote for the best player on the best team who may have gotten those 1 or 2 big goals that made a difference. Which makes Hazard an excellent candidate in the 2017-2019 time frame.
I'm not comparing, in case that isn't clear. That particular picture, posted on the their twitter account, shows some info that isn't captured in the other individual tweets (successful dribble percentage and fouls won). I'd actually doubt whether the numbers are that much better but that is by the by. Thanks for reminding me why I had been absent here for a few days.
Well, it's tough to know what the future holds for Barca, but I reckon it's a big/successful club enough to offer a platform for top players to perform at their best. No club guarantess one major international titles, but Barca can offer what other big clubs can.