23 Feb 2015

Coutinho vs. Hazard: Who's the best? LFC fans give their verdict. Surprise?

Eden Hazard and Philippe Coutinho are vital members of their respective teams, and both are in fine form this season, but given the choice, who would Liverpool fans rather have turning out for the club?

Last week, I conducted a poll (which is still ongoing) asking that question:

* 10400 visitors (approx) participated in the poll.

* 52% of participants selected Coutinho.

Given Coutinho's popularity amongst fans, that's a narrower result than expected, but it just goes to show that Liverpool fans are not totally biased when it comes to assessing rival players.

Liverpool wanted Hazard two years before he signed for Chelsea, and Rafa Benitez confirmed this last year, when he told reporters:

"I can tell you 200 players I wanted to sign in my career and we couldn't. Eden Hazard, we wanted him at Liverpool. We couldn't sign him. In our list, maybe he was here [top] but we have to go for this one [lower down].

Hazard at Liverpool? That would've been one hell of a signing, but the Belgian was, perhaps, too young during Benitez's Anfield reign, and probably made the right decision to develop his game at Lille.

I doubt the transfer even got to the negotiation stage, though; Liverpool were probably priced out of any deal, and given the money Benitez wasted in his last two seasons at Anfield (not to mention throughout his entire tenure), it's no surprise the board put the stoppers on any further big-money transfers.

As for Coutinho vs. Hazard - both are arguably on similar level when it comes to skill/guile, but Hazard vastly exceeds the Brazilian in the end-product stakes. Stats this season:

Stats:

* Hazard: 13 goals/13 assists in 38 apps (26 in 38).
* Goal/assist every 1.4 games (1 every 119 mins)

* Coutinho: 4 goals/5 assists in 37 apps (9 in 37)
* Goal/assist every 4.1 games (1 every 303 mins)

On this basis, I'd rather have Hazard in the team. Coutinho is fantastic, but end product is what matters, and Hazard when it comes to specific, measurable impact, Hazard - who cost Chelsea £32m - is far more consistent.

Is Coutinho capable of reaching similar goal/assist figures to Hazard?


38 comments:

  1. Why ask Liverpool supporters? They know there is zero chance of getting Hazard, so what is the point of throwing their own player under the bus just to praise an opponent's man? If you ask 100 coaches or club owners who they'd rather have at their club, Hazard or Coutinho, I'd be surprised if four of them expressed a preference for Coutinho. And ask 1,000 non-Chelsea and non-Liverpool fans who they'd prefer in their team, I'd expect virtually unanimous call for Hazard. So enjoy Coutinho as best you can and leave the Hazard dreaming to Real Madrid orPSG fans.

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  2. Coutinho just needs to find consistency and then he can be one of the best attacking midfielders in the world. He has it all, skill, trickery, intelligence, passing and can read the game. His goal scoring needs to improve but he is our most intelligent and creative player by a long shot.

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  3. Silva is far better, and I'm not sure if Coutinho is even as good as Cazorla.

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  4. Silva is 29 now and Carzola 30.


    Coutinho is only 22. Why would you want to make such a comparison?

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  5. Ronaldo is 30. There aren't many 22-year olds who will contribute what he will over the next couple of years. After that, who cares? Players come and go all the time.

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  6. So it was a massive win for us vs Southampton.

    3rd Arsenal 48
    4th UTD 47
    5th Southampton 46
    6th LFC 45
    7th Spurs 44

    It does not get closer than that with a point separating each team and the race to finish 4th and 3rd this season will be one of the closest yet.

    Our next 5 league matches

    Manchester City home
    Burnley home
    Swansea City away
    Manchester United home
    Arsenal away



    City and Arsenal will not be easy matches but we should be beating Burnley, Swansea and UTD if we want to finish 4th but IMO we are going to have to beat one of City or Arsenal to make 4th possible. Two of our last three matches are away, Chelsea A, Palaces H and Stoke A. Those are the three fixtures that will make or break 4th and will IMO be the trickiest of our remaining fixtures.

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  7. So Ronaldo is obviously better than Silva and Carzola? Not sure what you are trying to achieve by comparing players to Coutinho who has not even reached his prime yet. Silva is a much more complete player now than what he was five years ago so really pointless comparison.

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  8. You are making my point for me. If it is going to take several years for Coutinho to make the superior Silva's level, then the side with Silva is presently better off, regardless of age.

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  9. Within our team Coutinho is a better fit than silva or cazorla. They wouldn't be capable of the high pressing game we play. I'm not sure hazard would for that matter. Go back and watch the lfc v Chelsea capital one cup matches. Coutinho and sterling's work of the ball was essential to us being the better team by some margin over the two legs. Not sure hazard is so selfless. His own manager often berates him for overlooking his defensive duties

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  10. No I am no making your point for you. If we had to go 5-6 years back, was Silva better than Coutinho at the same age?

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  11. I don't want to argue for the sake of arguing. My point is that TODAY, Silva is a better player than Coutinho. Robben is a better player today than Robben was at Chelsea. Coutinho will probably be a better player at his next club than he is today. In the meantime, I'd always prefer a player at his peak, to a player who is not. It's all very well saying Coutinho is building towards that, but there is no guarantee at all that he'll be spending his peak years at Liverpool. Same with Hazard. He's just signed a new 5-year contract with Chelsea, but no-one would expect him to be there for more than three years of that. Chelsea would probably then be selling him before his contract gets down to one year. Will Hazard be a better player at that time? We can't be sure, but we know he should be near his peak, at around 26 or 27, so that would be theoretically the best time to have him.

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  12. You just said that a player peaks at around 27 so again to compare Silva and Carzola who have already peaked is pointless.


    Coutinho weeks back signed a new 5 year deal and I doubt we would want to move him on before his contract ends. Coutinho can only improve and has every chance to work towards being better than Silva is now.

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  13. I've never seen Silva hit crackers from outside the box like Coutinho dude. Your assessment is based on what again?Silva's finishing is poor and playmaker wise, coutinho is easily on par.Your comparison is false. Pop a penny in and try again.

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  14. It still does help when you have a Chelsea team around you...

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  15. 4eva LFC, LFC 4eva7:29 am, February 23, 2015

    At the end of the day a player is only worth what a club wants to pay, some people will tell us he is worth it some will say don't waste your money, I have seen some clips on him but I try not to watch too much Serie A, so don't really know much about him, he looks good when he is on song (you tube) but 37 mill is a lot of money.

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  16. Let's not fool ourselves, Coutinho has been pretty good lately but Hazard has been brilliant since the season started. They do play slightly different roles, go back to what Rodgers said about not expecting Coutinho to score 15 goals a season and despite the 10 on his back he's showing some of the qualities and tactical placement needed in an 8. That's a bit of a justification of his lower creative output but even still, Hazard has just been a better player, he's a more natural goal scorer and he's really done well so far this season.

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  17. There is also Khedira and he is available on a free!

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  19. Bull****. You came on here looking to pick a fight. Logan was merely making a point that Coutinho has the potential to be a wonderful player if he ticks off A, B, C and D, yet you blow in and start an argument because you're either really stupid and missed Logan's point, or you just feel like arguing for the sake of it, as you have done on here before. So don't call the kettle black. Whether Silva and Cazorla are currently better than Coutinho is completely irrelevant to Logan's comment. You don't need to sit here and tell us how great the likes of Silva are. We already know.

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  20. It's a football based discussion. It's idle speculation to spark a debate. Clearly with biased football goggles on the result is unlikely to be scientific or conclusive. As the article says the surprise is that the result is closer than you might expect from football fans. What does that tell us well that's another debate.......

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  21. Dude, up-voting your own comment doesn't count.

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  22. Another year's worth of income by then plus any sales income some of which could be spent on players.

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  23. Wasnt this guy trolling around after the Chelsea game last season?

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  24. Coutinho will be better then Hazard. Give him a bit more time. He is progressing far

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  25. Voting for your own comment classless really and your praising a team City that needed to spend more money than any team on earth to be decent team but still not near the best in Europe.
    Just what will City do when the sheik is sick of his toy a return to the championship where you belong i suppose.

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  26. Ah Jaimie, how about Costa vs Balotelli? That helped A BIT, RIGHT?

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  27. Preferably we need to beat Arsenal too. Them and United are like six pointers. We should be looking at third. I think we can manage draws against City and Chelsea. We have shown we can draw with Chelses over ninety minutes already. Stoke and Palace post Pulis are less tricky than they have been.

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  28. Agree any poster who up votes their own comments should have it removed

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  29. New TV deal, new kit deal, another years worth of commercial revenue which is growing all the time, player sales and loan fees for players leaving... Also Stevie and Johnson's wages will be about a 300k a week saving. Not to mention our big money tour of Australia planned that I'm sure you're looking to.

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  30. Let's not forget we still need a top keeper.

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  31. Hazard all day of the week. Surprised to see so many vote for Coutinho.

    Hazard is a top player and is very consistent, his stats prove it.


    Coutinho, although 2 years younger, is very inconsistent but there is room for improvement.


    So at the moment definitely Hazard.

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  32. And when you take pens

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  33. For me It's a matter of consistency, for they both have wonderful skill of football......

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  34. 10-11 points out of this games should do us

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  35. Hazard is the player Sterling should aim to be.
    Coutinho should stick to emulating Ronaldinho.
    Silva is a more consistent Coutinho.
    Hazard is better than all of them.

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