MrExcalibur100

I hope Hazard doesn't play a single minute of this game.

If you're going to include CL performances in this then it's no longer a fair or even a reasonable debate. It becomes all the more tedious to make a comparison. According to my above post Hazard was the most creative and best dribbling winger in Europe last season on league performances. According to yours Mbappe was one of the best players in the UCL last season.

That's true but even Conte does as well though he's less rigid. There's a reason why we go for the Bakayoko's and Drinkwaters' of this world instead of the Weigl's, Parades' and Aouar's. Pep won't even look at players like Bakayoko.

The football they're playing right now is on a different planet to that team. We basically had no rivals that season. United were decent but had a young Rooney and Ronaldo and Arsenal were on a youth movement trying to save up for their stadium. That was basically a Bundesliga season 5-0 v Liverpool 1-0 v Chelsea 3-1 v Arsenal 2-1 v Man Utd 4-1 v Tottenham Man City have already won against all of the other teams to finish in the top-six last season. Aggregate score: 15-3 mAgainst teams managed by Mourinho, Conte, Klopp, Pochettino and Wenger. It's not even remotely as impressive

Also there goes the myth that Guardiola needs to work only with the absolute best to produce the best results. Sane and Sterling are talented young players but they aren't one of the best. Even Silva and Aguero two PL legends still really good players but not the same players of 4 years ago. Gabriel Jesus is still a kid. Pep is just amazing. The haters will learn to give him his due.

Another central midfielder. We literally need Sandro, Meunier, Verratti, Neymar and maybe an Immobile type level as the second striker for solutions to seriously compete and overcome with this team.

Problematic argumentation. So there are 38 games a season City will only have to play in these hypothetical matches 2 times against either one of those legendary teams. What about the remaining 36 games? They have 52 from a possible 54 points. Have scored the most goals in 18 games and are blowing away their (considerable amount) of rivals. The league is stronger than its ever been. Miss me with all the reminscing. This is the best team we've seen till now. Not sure how 52/54 can be argued against.

Also goals record as well.

What has this country had to offer? This is the best this country has had to offer if you consider Klopp at Liverpool, Mourinho at United, Pochettino at Spurs and Conte at Chelsea. There are more teams fighting for the title with more money to go around than ever before. City are just pissing the league making it look easy.

Exactly. Had a better squad at Bayern & still demanded more. Only PSG or City could have satisfied him. Look at the ambition our board has shown with Conte. I doubt he's losing sleep over not coming here.

Man City are the best team this country have ever seen at the Christmas period. By far. By far.This is not just scary this season but in the seasons to come. They haven't even had the need for Mendy this season who would have been a terror down the left flank.

A literal blue moon. That's just awful

There was the rumour that if he were to take charge he wanted to replace half of our squad. Says it all if true.

good point

No wonder Abramovich was so desperate to get Guardiola.

Another tap in for Sterling. How many of that has he had this season? When you play football from paradise it's not surprising your attacking players get so many simple chances.

You have to give Pep credit for that. He's successfully implemented his brand of football on the Premier league. As for De Bruyne/Gerrard. De Bruyne is more similar to Beckham than he is to Gerrard. Gerrard never played with this level of talent in his career and certainly not with such an attacking genius of a manager. That matters a lot DYC. Sterling looks like Garrincha in this team. Let's not go overboard

You didn't read my post Skip. It was all about both players' seasons. You're better than this.Read it carefully.

Late response @The Skipper my friend. I'm not sure why you're bringing the CL into it since Hazard didn't even play there. Of course Mbappe had an iconic season. He played for the best goalscoring team in Europe last season. Put Hazard on that Monaco team of last season and this is not debatable. I'm also not sure why you're downplaying sites like Squawka. I think these sites give a much fairer representation of a players' season than subjective opinions. Mbappe wasn't even a starting XI player in his team till Christmas/January and Monaco were still the dominant team in France. There were a lot of goalscorers in that team. Falcao, Germain, Lemar even. Bernado Silva.. Hazard along with Fabregas were our only real creative forces last season and Fabregas was barely even a real consistent factor as Conte didn't trust him so it was mainly Hazard. Costa also didn't show up last season while Falcao had one of his best seasons in recent memory. Hazard had way more responsibility to be good and dominated in most of the PL games he played (or was allowed to play by the coaches tactics) Hazard created more chances than any other player in Europe's top 5 leagues last season. https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/pIE68Mj2lU6L-wBGAJVziw/Show/European-Team-of-the-Season-ST-Eden-Hazard-(Chelsea) If he were playing for a more free-scoring team or if his teammates (i.e Costa, Willian) converted his chances to goals he could easily have been in double figure assists. Hazard only had 2 assists to Costa last season. This season he has 7 already so he's clearly more comfortable playing next to Morata and (or) through the middle. He was statistically the best dribbler in Europe last season . http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2016/185/en/ This is not just aesthestically pleasing but as you know this allows him to create space for his teammates and himself when he's able to dribble past players. It's difficult to quantify with stats how important an effective dribbler is to a team. Look at Zaha for instance. It's not a coincidence that last season when he developed into one of Europe's most effective volume dribblers, his status as a top winger became visible to everyone. It's very impressive being the most creative and best dribbling winger in Europe. This is why sites like Whoscored and Squawka are relevant to such debates. If it were just about subjective opinions then it's meaningless. Everyone has an opinion that can be argued. It depends on what the argument is. If you say Mbappe had a more iconic season (in your words) then I'll have to agree. His team reached the semi-finals of the Champions league. Hazard didn't even play the Champions league. So it's a bit of a moot point to bring up in the 1st place. However if you're debating if Mbappe had a better season including league football then I'll have to strongly disagree. Mbappe was not even a starter over Germain till January (IIRC) and Monace were still the dominant team in France and topping the table, scoring for fun. Can you imagine what Chelsea will look if Hazard was not a starter will January last season? We would have struggled for top 4 (!) And don't discount what stats based algorithm sites have to say. Insigne and Mertens were superb last season playing for one of Europe's best teams. Mertens had a better season in the league last season than Mbappe.

Tottenham came to play on the counter. City1-0 in 15 minutes. This game is already looking over . City really are a joy to watch. The idiots that were trolling Pep can all STFU right now. That guy has an amazing football mind.

Hazard - Morata - Pedro Alonso - Drinkwater - Kante - Moses Much better than the rubbish we started today. I don't think we've even tried this before. Can swap Morata for Batshuayi or even Kante for Fabregas. Would have produced a much better game and better results than we saw today. It seems the more options available for Conte and the more rotations he has to do and at least in my opinion he isn't living up to expectations. Some good players being underutilized.

I don't think it was a defensive move but playing without a striker is not something we should be doing. Firstly it's disrespectful to Batshuayi who has been nothing short of a class act since he arrived here and has a better goal:min played ratio than just about any striker in the PL. Secondly, we play without a reference point which seriously undermines our attacking potential. I don't need to go into too much detail as to why that is as I think it's obvious. Compare our football in this game to our last two home games against Newcastle and Atletico Madrid. I was really looking forward to seeing what Morata could do today but this chopping and changing has taking him out of his goalscoring form. The same is also true with Hazard and his goalscoring form. Morata was scoring goals/assisting during our WBA away period. It's kind of disturbing our 2 best players are on a goal drought thanks to our manager trying to be too clever. If Conte is going to make rotations he should have made better use of the following players. : Pedro, Batshuayi, Drinkwater.

You can't compare those games though. City battered them and I was actually entertained by their play. I just found today's game very boring and that was particularly annoying as it could have been prevented if Morata or even the exiled Batshuayi played from the start.

I just made this point regarding Conte's rotations.

I'm not convinced Conte really knows how to manage player rotations. We were apparently "tired" against West Ham. Very odd part of the period to be tired. If Conte had actually managed the situation properly that loss could have been avoided. Today he basically makes no rotations, Drinkwater nowhere to be seen. Morata doesn't play despite a league cup game next and we turn in a drab performance because there's no reference point up front. Hazard has played so many games in a short period, apparently he doesn't get rotated. Don't get it.