Rated more highly by whom? Cazorla easily gets more game time for Spain compared to Mata. In fact, I am pretty sure Mata did not even make it into Spain's latest squad. Cazorla was not at his best against Chelsea because they marked him well. Mata and Hazard had more freedom. Even then they hardly did anything that was amazing in open play.
He does look great. Always thought he was good but didn't realise how effective he'd be in a central position.
Cazorla didn't have the best of games against Chelsea, but he still made a play that we could've scored from late in the game, Giroud missed an open goal. If Giroud had scored that, everyone would've said that's why Cazorla is world class, can produce plays in an instance, but sadly, Giroud didn't finnish the play.
Carzorla and Mata have been the best players in the EPL so far this Season. Carzorla is more well rounded of the two.
From what I've read about Cazorla's number of appearances in previous seasons, he almost never gets injured. When our midfield is Arteta-Cazorla-Wilshere we'll be unplayable!
Not that I dispute it but using a different word might have been appropriate I am guessing you meant it like FACT!!!! - but you have actually just shouted QUICK!!!! Slight non-sequitur otherwise.
Shame we aren't taking full advantage of his brilliance. Thats probably why the striker rumours have re-surfaced.
It was rather amusing and interesting at the same time reading the link. What it does show is the ignorance and lack of knowledge of a lot of posters on this forum. So many posters were basing their opinions on thin-air rather than taking a poster's opinion who actually watches La Liga and Maliga quite a bit. I have someone in the office who is a huge fan of La Liga and he said in the beginning that Carzola is a great buy. The guy is clearly world class and will be one of the best players of the EPL.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. In my opinion saying someone is a great buy, based on watching them playing for a smaller team in a different country is a bit naive. You never fully know how they will settle / adapt to the premier league. I still wouldn't necesarilly say that he is World Class based on a handful of appearances for us (I hadn't seen much of him in Spain), but it would certainly appear that Zlatan and your office pal were correct.
Cazorla has actually done better than I thought he would, especially from the start. I did rate him when he was in La Liga but to come to a new league and country and just boss things straight away was not an easy ask. But Cazorla has and that's to his immense credit.
I thnk you can get into a lot of trouble if you go by one person's opinion. What alerted me to the fact that this guy is good was the fact that he was making the Spanish national team and how highly rated he was in Spain. When 20M odd people think he is good, it is unlikely that they are ALL going to be wrong. Still shows how over-rated most English players are. Just could not believe Gerrard and Carrick are still in the same England team yesterday. I can't believe that they still get in their club sides, let alone the national team. For all the stick Beckham took, everyone seems to forget that Gerrard was with him every step of the way.
He's already played at stoke though admittedly not on a cold windy night....I doubt many players have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR9jcHkKlJc
Yes because playing well at Stoke is more harder than going and playing well away to the champions like Cazorla did.
Also, Gareth Bale will not have proved if he is good or not until he plays well on a warm and sultry evening in Mallorca.
