Eden Hazard

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

10 hours ago, Robguima said:

It's funny because my read of the many posts here is that Chelsea should sell Hazard, which is probably not the intention of the authors.

There are obvious drawbacks of playing with a centralized key player in a free role: it's a single big target to be stopped. It's even more of drawback when the team lacks overall quality esp in attack.

The problem: some think (I do not) that Eden's genius is being limited by the poor overall quality around him.

So, considering that the overall quality around him hasn't really changed that much over time, which perhaps suggests the club has reached its limit in terms of spending, then we have to fix the problem in a different way: controversial, I know, but wouldn't the club benefit more by having 2-3 quality players, as opposed to one key player? Now (wildly) assuming our board has the talent to sign 2-3 quality players by selling Hazard (plus some cash lying around). If all were true, and we ended up with more quality players in numbers, then it could be indeed beneficial to the team.

I don't think people want us to sell Hazard but you have to be realistic. Nowadays if a player only has 2 years on his contract, a significant bid comes in and he tells the club he wants to leave it's very difficult to refuse that as a club. 

Arsenal did it with Sanchez but i think it'll hurt them in the long run. Now they won't get any money to replace him with.

 

Sounds good in theory  but it often doesn't pan out like that in real life.

Liverpool sold Suarez and have since then spent a lot of money on players yet  never gotten closer to the title then they did with Suarez.

Tottenham sold Bale and bought several players in his place but they didn't improve even though they got close to a 100 million for him.

Even if we sold Hazard for 150-200 million i don't think we'd be able to buy top tier players/talents. 

We'd likely be looking at second tier talents who'd have the potential. 

That would mean a drop in performance a period of transition and looking where we are now that would likely mean struggling to finish in the top 4.

Even then there would be no guarantee that those bought players would reach their potential.

 

Also key players are needed if you actually want to win trophies. 

Look at Tottenham. They don't really have a key player that stands out in comparison to the rest of the team. 

They're a very solid and well rounded team with no real obvious weak spots yet they've won fuck all. 

There's a reason why so many  teams have that 1 key player that's above the team.

No matter how well rounded you are as a team there will always be games or moments in a game where you need that 1 player to make a difference.

 

[robsblubot 3,503]

8 hours ago, Belgiannutt said:

I don't think people want us to sell Hazard but you have to be realistic. Nowadays if a player only has 2 years on his contract, a significant bid comes in and he tells the club he wants to leave it's very difficult to refuse that as a club. 

Arsenal did it with Sanchez but i think it'll hurt them in the long run. Now they won't get any money to replace him with.

 

Sounds good in theory  but it often doesn't pan out like that in real life.

Liverpool sold Suarez and have since then spent a lot of money on players yet  never gotten closer to the title then they did with Suarez.

Tottenham sold Bale and bought several players in his place but they didn't improve even though they got close to a 100 million for him.

Even if we sold Hazard for 150-200 million i don't think we'd be able to buy top tier players/talents. 

We'd likely be looking at second tier talents who'd have the potential. 

That would mean a drop in performance a period of transition and looking where we are now that would likely mean struggling to finish in the top 4.

Even then there would be no guarantee that those bought players would reach their potential.

 

Also key players are needed if you actually want to win trophies. 

Look at Tottenham. They don't really have a key player that stands out in comparison to the rest of the team. 

They're a very solid and well rounded team with no real obvious weak spots yet they've won fuck all. 

There's a reason why so many  teams have that 1 key player that's above the team.

No matter how well rounded you are as a team there will always be games or moments in a game where you need that 1 player to make a difference.

 

While you make a good point around the importance of the key player, I don't think the answer is all that black and white.

Tottenham, the club, is not a good example because they haven't really achieve top tier status just yet. They've been working towards that goal, but it literally comes with trophies and knowhow as of how to repeat that. Liverpool is interesting in that, their issues stem from poor defending as they've always managed to find talent up front.

City is a more interesting comparison IMO: they also don't have a particular key player. Wouldn't say any of their players is better than Hazard, but they have many players in their squad who are not far behind hazard in terms of ability to influence games. And yet they are the vastly superior team incidentally because it's more difficult to stop them.

I honestly don't think this club is capable of filling the squad with quality players in every position and every time we add quality we lose some.

So my questioning of Eden's usefulness to a side like ours comes from your own point of him being dependent of having quality players around him, which we do not have and will likely not have in the future. A different type of, or a better, key player might be able to do more on his own, with long shooting for example, creative passing, direct dribbling, but the point (whether accurate or not) was that blaming the overall poor quality of the team points to the fact Eden depends on teammates to play to his potential. Unless of course, it was just an excuse after a subpar performance.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

30 minutes ago, Robguima said:

While you make a good point around the importance of the key player, I don't think the answer is all that black and white.

Tottenham, the club, is not a good example because they haven't really achieve top tier status just yet. They've been working towards that goal, but it literally comes with trophies and knowhow as of how to repeat that. Liverpool is interesting in that, their issues stem from poor defending as they've always managed to find talent up front.

City is a more interesting comparison IMO: they also don't have a particular key player. Wouldn't say any of their players is better than Hazard, but they have many players in their squad who are not far behind hazard in terms of ability to influence games. And yet they are the vastly superior team incidentally because it's more difficult to stop them.

I honestly don't think this club is capable of filling the squad with quality players in every position and every time we add quality we lose some.

So my questioning of Eden's usefulness to a side like ours comes from your own point of him being dependent of having quality players around him, which we do not have and will likely not have in the future. A different type of, or a better, key player might be able to do more on his own, with long shooting for example, creative passing, direct dribbling, but the point (whether accurate or not) was that blaming the overall poor quality of the team points to the fact Eden depends on teammates to play to his potential. Unless of course, it was just an excuse after a subpar performance.

Don't know if City is really that great a comparison. We're talking about adding 2-3 players. City are loaded with quality in attack. Even on the bench they have players that would walk into our team. To be able to compare our squad to City we'd be talking about signing 5-6-7 quality players.

Also i question whether we'd be able to sign players of the quality of a De Bruyne, Silva, Sane, Sterling and Jesus. Money is one thing but would they actually want to come here. 

 

Every player in the world is dependent on his teammates. It's a teamsport. You can be as great a player as you wanna be if you're playing with poor players then that's gonna put a burden on that great player.

For example stick Messi in WHU and he wouldn't have scored as many goals or performed as well as he did for Barcelona.

Please name me a better key player , that we can realistically get, then Hazard ? 

Overall poor quality of the team will effect any player no matter how good he is. 

[robsblubot 3,503]

5 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

Don't know if City is really that great a comparison. We're talking about adding 2-3 players. City are loaded with quality in attack. Even on the bench they have players that would walk into our team. To be able to compare our squad to City we'd be talking about signing 5-6-7 quality players.

Also i question whether we'd be able to sign players of the quality of a De Bruyne, Silva, Sane, Sterling and Jesus. Money is one thing but would they actually want to come here. 

 

Every player in the world is dependent on his teammates. It's a teamsport. You can be as great a player as you wanna be if you're playing with poor players then that's gonna put a burden on that great player.

For example stick Messi in WHU and he wouldn't have scored as many goals or performed as well as he did for Barcelona.

Please name me a better key player , that we can realistically get, then Hazard ? 

Overall poor quality of the team will effect any player no matter how good he is. 

Fair enough on city.

yes but the how much the key player may depend on his teammates varies a lot, not only by quality but also characteristics. 

Sorry I just cannot bring Messi into this... different world imo. Neither would I bring WHU as many of the players we criticize at chelsea would be key players there.

even Hazard would not come to chelsea at this time.

The point I always make is that you have to sign them young and keep them.  imagine if we had kept KDB and Salah? Say instead of keeping hazard... would it be worse? I don’t know. Better keeping all 3 but perhaps resources play a part too. The club has no talent to build a quality squad though.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

8 minutes ago, Robguima said:

Fair enough on city.

yes but the how much the key player may depend on his teammates varies a lot, not only by quality but also characteristics. 

Sorry I just cannot bring Messi into this... different world imo. Neither would I bring WHU as many of the players we criticize at chelsea would be key players there.

even Hazard would not come to chelsea at this time.

The point I always make is that you have to sign them young and keep them.  imagine if we had kept KDB and Salah? Say instead of keeping hazard... would it be worse? I don’t know. Better keeping all 3 but perhaps resources play a part too. The club has no talent to build a quality squad though.

Messi WHU comments were an extreme example to make a clear point about the quality of teammates having an effect on a player no matter how great.

So i chose the greatest player and a shit team. 

That's the thing though isn't it. If you buy them young then you're looking at a period of transition, a drop in performance, as those players need to grow to reach their potential but here's no guarantee they will.

I don't think lack of resources played a part in selling KDB and Salah. Hazard i suppose played a part as he occupied one of the starting position although considering the other 2 spots were held by Oscar and Willian i'd say the biggest culprit was Mourinho.

He saw them in practice nearly everyday yet preferred Willian and Oscar over Salah and KDB. 

 

Even if we sold Hazard for 200 million i have no faith we'd actually get in proper quality. We'd likely just spend that money on 5 Bakayoko's. 

 

[The Skipper 20,593]

Didn’t score or assist but easily a 9/10 performance. So good. 

[robsblubot 3,503]

45 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

Messi WHU comments were an extreme example to make a clear point about the quality of teammates having an effect on a player no matter how great.

So i chose the greatest player and a shit team. 

That's the thing though isn't it. If you buy them young then you're looking at a period of transition, a drop in performance, as those players need to grow to reach their potential but here's no guarantee they will.

I don't think lack of resources played a part in selling KDB and Salah. Hazard i suppose played a part as he occupied one of the starting position although considering the other 2 spots were held by Oscar and Willian i'd say the biggest culprit was Mourinho.

He saw them in practice nearly everyday yet preferred Willian and Oscar over Salah and KDB. 

 

Even if we sold Hazard for 200 million i have no faith we'd actually get in proper quality. We'd likely just spend that money on 5 Bakayoko's. 

 

The key player thing is very nuanced.

Argentina, despite good overall quality in the squad had been playing like shit in WCQ, like Italy level of shit. Then Messi shows up and qualifies them with 3 goals when needed. Still, I cannot say that argentina would not have qualified without messi. Because without him, they might have had more cohesion, and become a better team without depending so much on a single player. It is a team sport. Now, of course they would be more likely to win a WC with messi on the team.

well we agree on the last point for sure. Our staff like big strong players - technical ability does not seem as important to them.

On Mourinho, I don't blame him for losing the players; I blame the club. He's known for rarely rotating and rarely giving minutes to youngsters. If a manager refuses to give play time to promising youngsters, he should be sacked even while bringing the results. Long-term vision should always take precedence... do we have one?

[The Chels 2,502]

Most talented player in the history of this football club. It saddens me to think he will probably leave in his peak.

[Tautvix 1,321]

 

[Mufassir08 2,400]

What a guy 

[Blusan Alamb 295]

 

 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

I pray to seven gods he stays with Chelsea.

He is simply too important and good to be replaced. 

[Jase 43,479]

26 minutes ago, BlueLyon said:

I pray to seven gods he stays with Chelsea.

He is simply too important and good to be replaced. 

Okay...can we go through a week without mentioning Hazard leaving Chelsea (or something along those lines)? It seriously makes everything else depressing!

[BlueLyon 9,359]

36 minutes ago, Jason said:

Okay...can we go through a week without mentioning Hazard leaving Chelsea (or something along those lines)? It seriously makes everything else depressing!

I know man, I know 

[Special Juan 27,424]

Interview was absolute gold with Willian.

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

12 hours ago, Robguima said:

The key player thing is very nuanced.

Argentina, despite good overall quality in the squad had been playing like shit in WCQ, like Italy level of shit. Then Messi shows up and qualifies them with 3 goals when needed. Still, I cannot say that argentina would not have qualified without messi. Because without him, they might have had more cohesion, and become a better team without depending so much on a single player. It is a team sport. Now, of course they would be more likely to win a WC with messi on the team.

well we agree on the last point for sure. Our staff like big strong players - technical ability does not seem as important to them.

On Mourinho, I don't blame him for losing the players; I blame the club. He's known for rarely rotating and rarely giving minutes to youngsters. If a manager refuses to give play time to promising youngsters, he should be sacked even while bringing the results. Long-term vision should always take precedence... do we have one?

Ofcourse there's a lot of things that come into play.

 

Argentina is a weird team. They have so many options in attack but they don't really fit as a team. Too many players of the same sort trying to use the same space. 

Well we kinda did before we hired Mourinho. We seemed to move away from a pragmatic approach and we were signing small technical players at the time trying to play a more free flowing attacking brand of football.

We were heavily linked with Guardiola at the time aswell but when he turned us down we then turned to  Mourinho. I always felt that was an odd way to go. 

I mean it's weird to have Guardiola and Mourinho as nr1 and nr 2 on a list of managers to get because i don't think you'll be able to find a bigger clash of styles then that in world football.

Gotta wonder what we were thinking at the time. Did we expect Mourinho to change ? To play in a different way or did we simply give up our attempt at playing more attacking football.

 

[Tomo 21,733]

25 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

Ofcourse there's a lot of things that come into play.

 

Argentina is a weird team. They have so many options in attack but they don't really fit as a team. Too many players of the same sort trying to use the same space. 

Well we kinda did before we hired Mourinho. We seemed to move away from a pragmatic approach and we were signing small technical players at the time trying to play a more free flowing attacking brand of football.

We were heavily linked with Guardiola at the time aswell but when he turned us down we then turned to  Mourinho. I always felt that was an odd way to go. 

I mean it's weird to have Guardiola and Mourinho as nr1 and nr 2 on a list of managers to get because i don't think you'll be able to find a bigger clash of styles then that in world football.

Gotta wonder what we were thinking at the time. Did we expect Mourinho to change ? To play in a different way or did we simply give up our attempt at playing more attacking football.

 

You could tell by Jose's early interviews he was looking to settle down after his European tour and was on board with the direction we were heading in, so much so he went on record after we lost to Everton saying he was happy with the performance despite the loss and at the stage we were at preferred it to winning ugly, quotes are at the bottom of this page.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11945/8927730/chelsea-boss-jose-mourinho-says-he-is-not-obsessed-with-champions-league

I think after a few months he realized he wasn't capable of such a build and resorted to type. A lot of people, me included, gave him the benefit of the doubt he was doing it to get top 4 or possibly the title and will carry on with such project afterwards, but it wasn't to be. Although while we are on that subject looking back the Lukaku signing was really strange, he was the opposite of the way we were trying to go and if we did succeed in getting Pep Rom would have been chased out of Cobham with a machine gun after the first session  Did we get suckered in by his claim he supported us and that oscar winning acting on the Stamford Bridge tour? 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Anyone has video with all his touches vs huddersfield?