johnnythefirst

It would be kind of a douchy move towards his current team (title contender), but in the end it will make him a better player. At Zulte, where two crucial players already left this month, he practically has to carry the entire team with his creativity. At Anderlecht he'll find more players of his level or slightly above. Dennis Praet, Massimo Bruno, Anthony Vanden Borre (!! in my eyes), Youri Thielemans, Matthias Suarez, all decent slash good players. There are some older internationals like Demy De Zeeuw in the team too, that don't play a lot but can still be valuable to young players during training.

Hazard is obviously more talented. Kevin is not a dribbler, he doesn't have the genius of Eden. But as far as quality crosses and through balls go... If he's playing at his normal level, he's great. He has vista. It's really the only player in our national team who always directly passes the ball upfront. All the others have the tendency to keep the ball to themselves for too long or to slow the game down with a lateral ball.

Ah, as far as Thorgan goes: Belgian press are reporting Anderlecht and Chelsea have reached an agreement for a half year loan. Zulte on the other hand says all of this is bullshit. Hazard himself says nothing at all...

Damn, didn't know that. Let's hope he gets to 400 goals as well.

Drogba was better but ready to leave, Anelka wasn't used as a striker anymore (if I'm remembering it right), Torres sucked harder than he did now and I actually thought he would make a good strike force with Sturridge. I had hopes for him becoming a replacement for Drogba. Ideally he probably should have taken an extra step and signed for one of the more average teams in England, like Benteke did. But hey, Chelsea is his favorite team, he just wanted to play here.

Diego indeed, and he stated yesterday he'd love to have Kevin join the team. I'm guessing they'll use him on the wing if they can manage the price.

Now you're just talking about semantics. My point is that he wouldn't have lost that year, had he signed for a slightly smaller team. Of course, you can't know that beforehand, I thought he would work himself in the team during his first year too. But as I said, maybe the next generation will take that extra step before they go from a Belgian or Dutch top team to the top of the Premier League.

So far, he failed at CHELSEA. I'm a huge fan of Lukaku. But he lost an entire year playing in the reserve squad after being top scorer in the Belgian league for two years and already being an important international. He has yet to get his first real chance in the senior squad. He's had two good years on loan, but next year his future will once again be uncertain. I'm just saying the next generation is looking at this as well, and might take smaller steps before they sign a contract at an absolute top team. I'm actually really against this international trend of just buying every big talent around and then not even playing half of them. It slows down the players, it sucks the smaller leagues dry and more important for you guys, it stunts the development of your own youngsters. When was the last time a talented English player came out of your youth teams and became a regular in your first squad? Terry, if I'm right. Well, he'll soon be 34 years old.

Because certain teams with certain very wealthy foreign sponsors decided to blow up the market in the early 2000s by paying these prices. They are so expensive simply because you wish to buy them for that money. Brazilian Ronaldo, without a doubt the best striker in the world at the time, was worth € 25 million in the late nineties. That price was seen as insane. Now we're buying an average midfielder for that amount. That's not only inflation we're speaking of here. Also, add the fact that a virtually bankrupt team like Real can still use government money to keep buying 50-100 million euro players. It's really time for that financial fairplay in my eyes...

Well, isn't that exactly my point? Both of them are players to look up to for the (even) younger generation, yet they failed at Chelsea.

I think unless some Belgian players other than Eden Hazard start becoming regulars for Chelsea, it won't be that easy anymore to attract the younger generation. They've seen what happened to KDB and Lukaku. I think the smarter ones (read: the ones everyone would like to buy), are going to take smaller steps towards the top. Hazard had been proving himself for four years in the French league. That's a different story.

I meant the average quality of the teams is going up. Dortmund would be a contender in England too. Schalke, Leverkusen and the likes would be subtop.

Why shouldn't a player go to the Bundesliga these days? Good pay, practically every stadium is sold out and all clubs are financially stable... The PL has more title contenders, that's true, but they're gaining fast...

Seriously, what is this? Isn't that the whole point of being a striker?

I wonder if you guys actually watch his matches...

Pipo Inzaghi never ran more than 2 seconds at a time in his entire life. Now look at his stats. Still, Lukaku is not a lazy striker. Don't know where you get that idea. He's always a burden on defense...

And still he scored nine goals in 16 matches for Everton. Making top 5 in the PL top scorer list (after missing the first four or so matches and not being able to play against Chelsea).

I think he could have a regular starting spot in Anderlecht too...

A loan deal with an option to buy for about £20 mil would be the most honest solution ime...

Of course they want to weaken a contender (don't really think they'll be competing till the end though). Personally, he'll find much more players of his level at Anderlecht. It would be a dick-move, but it might benefit him in the end.

30 million Euro of course. £17 million sounds like a fair deal ime...

I still think Chelsea would be a step too high for him. Should work perfectly well in a mid-table or subtop PL side though... Consider him some free millions.

Haha, that's kinda douchy. I guess it'll be around 20 in the end..

I don't know where you get your info, but he hasn't nearly been as important for us as Cristiano or Zlatan were for their countries.

Tad harsh on Benteke though, since he made 5 goals before getting injured if I'm right. Oh well...