The comparison you made was with Hazard and Costa - the former won all the individual player awards in the PL 17 months ago, the latter has scored 2 goals every 3 games for Chelsea (a strike record comparable with the best strikers of recent times in the PL). Chelsea have these players and are considerably better for it - just as Liverpool have been in the recent past with an important creative player and key goalscorer - and are obviously weaker without them.
go on then clarify why you mentioned a pl title as a barometer of a players ability and now seem to be backing up on that point?
A player who has peer-comparable ability and helps their team to win a league title is better than a player who is the former but does not do the latter. That is why Hazard and Costa are better (PL at least) players than Slippy / Suarez / Bale.
That i couldnt agree more with, it wasnt the point i was making tbh, i wanted to point out there are many average players with pl medals and many exceptional players without one, as RDBD made the point that gerrard and suarez had none.
umm Djimi Traore has a CL medal despite being the closest i have ever seen a footballer look like Bambi on ice . medals mean very little unless backed up by being consistently a top player just look at some of the ManU players who have a sackful from Fergies time plus even if medals don't arrive because of the club you play for i.e. Spurs , Southampton does that make Le Tissier and Hoddle lesser players ?
It depends. To win a title, players have to be strong mentally. An English season is gruelling; players need to stay fit both physically and mentally and perform week in, week out, under all kinds of different pressures. It requires certain character traits that even the most gifted players don't always have. And some players are happier being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Some may lack the ability of their peers, but are consistent, committed performers who bring out the best in others around them. Phil Neville has loads of medals, but he never excelled in any one position, was never a regular first team choice and you'll be able to tell me the names of 100 or more players you think were more able. But few, if any, would have been as useful to to the title winning squads he played in.
oh i get the point about capable squad players (though it always helps if it is for a team that is successful ) but that wasn't the point , which was certain players were better than others simply by virtue of winning a title which imo is a tad simplistic
Some players make the difference when a league is won. Costa and Hazard made the difference for Chelsea, they changed a good team into a very good team.
ok why didn't Chelsea win the league last season then ? look the simple answer is you need a "team" and belief and then even average players can do a good job when called on, oh and a good manager -even if some age badly anyways i need my kip so goodnight
Your team of 08/09 were pretty good (best midfield in the world I am told), decent strike force, solid defence and one of the best keepers in Europe at the time. They didn't win the league because nobody made the difference against teams like Stoke, Hull, Fulham and Westham at home, Costa and Hazard made that difference against similar teams
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37828905 There is definitely some merit in knocking down the stadium, but I see no point in re-building it
! I believe there was already a plan to knock down the stadium and rebuild it as a purpose-built football stadium. But apparently that was not allowed. On the other hand, since WetSpam can do pretty much anything they want - and get the taxpayers to pay for it - perhaps they'll get lots more government money to do some kind of further conversion. I also expect they are happy to identify trouble makers inside the stadium so that if they are banned they can create as much trouble as they like outside and it won't be WetSpam's responsibility (like everything else).
What a strange thing to say, when has a club ever been held responsible for what random people do in the streets?
