Shinji Kagawa

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Obviously over the season he's not contributed as much as he could. But it's not as if he's done anything wrong, exactly. He's just following the usual pattern upon arrival at a new club in a new league. Started nervously but got better and better.

I don't see that anyone could be unhappy with the situation, basically, because it's so obvious that he's going to be excellent next season. He has been over the last few weeks, after all, and there's even more to come if his performances at Dortmund are anything to go on.

I hope that the Villa match was a sign that Fergie has decided to stick with him at number 10 even at Rooney's expense. You can basically start Rooney in a lot of places and get the same result, so I don't think he'll suffer from being nominally 'out wide' or 'in midfield'. Kagawa, on the other hand, is best when he's quite disciplined about staying central and near the striker where he's most dangerous.

Good things to come.
 
Btw, am I the only one who finds it weird that it has become "common" knowledge that Hazard has had a better season than Kagawa? Just for the hell of it, I compared their stats based on the Premier League and Champions League this season(bolded stats are stats where the player is superior).

Hazard:
* A goal/assist every 118 minutes(141.5 minutes if we take away his penalty goals)

* Passing accuracy = 83.8%
* Accurate through balls per game = 0.2
* Accurate long balls per game = 1

* Shots per game = 1.8
* Passes per game = 42.6
* Key passes per game = 1.8

* Dribbles per game = 2
* Disposessed per game = 1.6

* Interceptions per game = 1.1



Kagawa:
* A goal/assist every 122 minutes(keep in mind that he doesn't take penalties)

* Passing accuracy = 90.3%
* Accurate through balls per game = 0.3
* Accurate long balls per game = 1.4

* Shots per game = 1.1
* Passes per game = 40.3
* Key passes per game = 1

* Dribbles per game = 0.4
* Disposessed per game = 2

* Interceptions per game = 0.6

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So what can we make of these stats? Well, first of all it's pretty clear that Kagawa is more effective than Hazard in terms of goals and assists. Yes, Hazard has a better ratio, but that is largely because of his 4 penalty goals. Take these penalties away, and Kagawa is the winner by a pretty big margin.

Secondly, it's clear that Kagawa is the pass master. His general accuracy is much better, his long balls are more successful, and so are his through balls.

It's when we get to "involvement" that Hazard pulls the longest straw. He has much more shots, slightly more passes, and much more key passes. He's also a better dribbler(or at least he dribbles more). He loses the ball slighly less, and he's better at winning the ball back.

In conclution:
Kagawa is a better passer of the ball and is more effective in terms of goals and assists. Hazard is a better dribbler, better defensively, and is generally more involved in the game itself.

What we can conclude from this is that Kagawa and Hazard are very different players. Kagawa is an offensive playmaker, Hazard is an offensive individualist. It's because of this that Kagawa is more accurate with his passes, while Hazard shoots and dribbles more. So who has had the better season? It's actually hard to tell. Kagawa is more of a specialist than Hazard, so he should be judged with that kept in mind. Hazard plays equally well in AM and on the wing. Kagawa does not. It's therefore safe to say that Kagawa has been more impressive, seeing as he plays out of position but still beats Hazard in many important aspects, as well as goals/assist ratio.

Kagawa fanboy or not; these stats are interesting. Hazard is being praised everywhere, and people seem to agree that he's had a very good season. Why is it that Kagawa's season has been "mediocre/decent" then? I know that stats aren't everything, but they matter none the less.
 
Hazard is more influential to Chelsea's good attacking play than Kagawa is to ours currently. He's more threatening/creative in general and I also think he's less reserved in his play.

Kagawa has been decent/good but Hazard has been better. Sometimes statistics can only tell you so much about how a player performs and I think the Kagawa/Hazard comparison is a good example of this. This isn't to say that Hazard has set the league alight, mind - I do think he'll be an immense player but he's clearly not been at the level of someone like Mata.
 
There's a variety of reasons why that's not a very valid exercise.

Firstly, Hazard has played 31 games and Kagawa only 18. Everyone's become so obsessed with 'per game' stats these days that they forget that part of being an important player for a club is playing a lot of games for them. If a player only appears three times, and scores six goals, then his stats per game will be amazing. But that doesn't mean he's had a good season. Basically, you can't real make any sort of valid judgement about a player when they've had as stop-start a season as Kagawa. All we know at the moment is that the signs are very very good for next season.

Secondly, you've obviously missed the fact that not everyone is wildly praising Hazard. Most - Chelsea fans and neutrals - reckon he's had a decent first season but has been the least impressive of their 'three amigos', outperformed over the season by both Oscar and Mata. Again, he might well do even better next season, having had a year to settle in.

I've completely lost track of what my actual point was now. I guess simply that there's not much point making a comparison like this yet. If next season they both stay relatively injury-free and play lots of games (bear in mind that Kagawa has to displace Rooney if he wants to start regularly in his best position), then this sort of analysis will be more worthwhile.
 
Stats averaged out over a season can be very misleading. Hazard's blown more hot and cold, from what I've seen. When he's poor he's really shit, when he's good, he's excellent.

Kagawa been a bit more consistent but his best games have been nowhere near as impressive as Hazard's best games IMO.
 
I think Kagawa's played like Oscar this year; promising with glimpses of real class but generally unable to really impose himself on the team. Hazard's had flashes where he's been the team's key player. Kagawa's not there yet.
 
KingEric7 said:
Hazard is more influential to Chelsea's good attacking play than Kagawa is to ours currently. He's more threatening and more creative in general.
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... yet Kagawa is more effective and better at passing the ball.

I think it's easier for Hazard to stand out because he's a flair player who's more versatile. He's much more noticable because of his dribbling and constant shooting. It's also easier to stand out in Chelsea. I'm sure that Kagawa would have made just as much of an impact, if not more, had he played for Chelsea.
 
Brightonian said:
Hazard has played 31 games and Kagawa only 18. Everyone's become so obsessed with 'per game' stats these days that they forget that part of being an important player for a club is playing a lot of games for them. If a player only appears three times, and scores six goals, then his stats per game will be amazing. But that doesn't mean he's had a good season.
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I agree that ratio stats can be misleading, but I don't think Kagawa has played little enough for his stats to not matter. Had he played 500-600 minutes, then yes it wouldn't make sense. But he's played way more than that.

I don't think it's Kagawa's fault that he's played less than Hazard. Not only does Kagawa face much rougher competition, but he's also a specialist, which makes things significantly harder.
 
Mad Winger said:
... yet Kagawa is more effective and better at passing the ball.

I think it's easier for Hazard to stand out because he's a flair player who's more versatile. He's much more noticable because of his dribbling and constant shooting. It's also easier to stand out in Chelsea. I'm sure that Kagawa would have made just as much of an impact, if not more, had he played for Chelsea.
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That's doesn't entirely sum up what it is to be 'creative' and 'threatening', though. Other relevant stats for that include the 'dribbles per game' and 'key passes' stats whereby Hazard is superior. Either way, it's much easier just to watch the two players than to compare statistics and hope to gain a full picture of the comparison.

I'm not trying to say one has been vastly better than the other - I just see a player like Hazard who has been more key to Chelsea's good football when on form as being the superior performer to Kagawa who has been a lot more conservative and steady.

I think Hazard has the higher ceiling and has been a more influential player this season but they've both got huge potential. What obviously goes against Kagawa is his role in our team so it'd be nice to see him in his preferred position more often.
 
Mad Winger said:
I don't think it's Kagawa's fault that he's played less than Hazard. Not only does Kagawa face much rougher competition, but he's also a specialist, which makes things significantly harder.
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It's no-one's fault, and I'm not disagreeing with your actual assessment of the two players. I don't think Kagawa's done anything wrong. He's just had the sort of first season that was to be expected - settling in, a few injury issues keeping him out, not establishing himself in the first team until the end. Chelsea bought Hazard specifically in order to put him at the centre of a team rebuilding. As a result, he's been a first team regular from the start. But none of this actually says anything about the abilities of the players. I think to really assess that we need to wait until next season, when they'll be starting from a similar platform.
 
KingEric7 said:
Either way, it's much easier just to watch the two players than to compare statistics and hope to gain a full picture of the comparison.
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This is essentially the reason for why Hazard is regarded so highly in the first place. He looks more impressive, especially for people who aren't able to see the more complex parts of the games(not saying that you are one of those), but that doesn't necessarily mean that he is better. Why do you think Carrick for instance has been overlooked for so long? It's because it's harder to notice a "cog wheel". Kagawa is pretty much an offensive cog wheel. There's a lot of brilliant off-the-ball movements and subtle skills that you don't really see unless you pay close attention.
 
If this is how ridiculously biased I was towards Nani these past few years than I apologize to everyone.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Stats averaged out over a season can be very misleading. Hazard's blown more hot and cold, from what I've seen. When he's poor he's really shit, when he's good, he's excellent.

Kagawa been a bit more consistent but his best games have been nowhere near as impressive as Hazard's best games IMO.
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Kagawa has a solid bottom level. He always keeps good possession of the ball at the least. He has over a 90% pass completion rate for the season which is very high for a player of his advanced position. Hazard, like you say, tends to be anonymous or poor if he is not on his game. That said, Hazard has been better overall for me. There is more to come from Kagawa.
 
Mad Winger said:
This is essentially the reason for why Hazard is regarded so highly in the first place. He looks more impressive, especially for people who aren't able to see the more complex parts of the games(not saying that you are one of those), but that doesn't necessarily mean that he is better. Why do you think Carrick for instance has been overlooked for so long? It's because it's harder to notice a "cog wheel". Kagawa is pretty much an offensive cog wheel. There's a lot of brilliant off-the-ball movements and subtle skills that you don't really see unless you pay close attention.
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I didn't mean so much in terms of the aesthetics as I did in the sense of watching how they affect play. Hazard has been more prone to heavily influencing the nature of Chelsea's attack than Kagawa has ours, hence the post regarding him being 'more conservative'.

That's my main gripe with Kagawa given his talent but it's clearly part of some sort of adaptation phase. I used to watch him at Dortmund and he seemed more willing to express and involve himself so that's something he'll be working on. It doesn't help that our team has seemed somewhat resistant to fully utilising his close control play at times this season, but at the same time I find in football that if you really want the ball you tend to get it. I think Kagawa has admitted during the season that he is in the process of overcoming some mental issues and I think it may well be this sort of thing that he's talking about.
 
Cina said:
If this is how ridiculously biased I was towards Nani these past few years than I apologize to everyone.
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If you by "biased" mean "collect useful stats in order to compare two young players who play in roughly the same position", then I don't see a reason to apologize.

If you're gonna apologize for something, then apologize for being a cnut. At least that makes perfect sense:smirk:
 
Stats are a little unfair at times. As a winger/mindfielder you can create chance after chance but if your strikers can't hit a barn door it doesn't look good for you. Why should a player be judged on assists if he's doing his job?
 
acnumber9 said:
Stats are a little unfair at times. As a winger/mindfielder you can create chance after chance but if your strikers can't hit a barn door it doesn't look good for you. Why should a player be judged on assists if he's doing his job?
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Then again we can twist it around and say that he created a chance, but it was a difficult ball to reach none the less!

Winger A makes a perfect pass which should result in an assist, but the striker fecks it up, so it doesn't go down in the stats as a "key pass". Winger B makes an average(or even bad pass!), but the striker makes the best of it, puts himself in a good position, and fires off a shot. Suddenly, Winger B has made a nice key pass.

You see where I'm going with this? Certain stats can be misleading, yes. But it's the only thing we can use for attacking players, who's main job is to score and assist. As long as you do both at a reasonable rate, then you are doing your job.
 
Mad Winger said:
If you by "biased" mean "collect useful stats in order to compare two young players who play in roughly the same position", then I don't see a reason to apologize.

If you're gonna apologize for something, then apologize for being a cnut. At least that makes perfect sense:smirk:
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Thank you, and why would I apologize for that?
 
Brightonian said:
There's a variety of reasons why that's not a very valid exercise.

Firstly, Hazard has played 31 games and Kagawa only 18. Everyone's become so obsessed with 'per game' stats these days that they forget that part of being an important player for a club is playing a lot of games for them. If a player only appears three times, and scores six goals, then his stats per game will be amazing. But that doesn't mean he's had a good season. Basically, you can't real make any sort of valid judgement about a player when they've had as stop-start a season as Kagawa. All we know at the moment is that the signs are very very good for next season.

Secondly, you've obviously missed the fact that not everyone is wildly praising Hazard. Most - Chelsea fans and neutrals - reckon he's had a decent first season but has been the least impressive of their 'three amigos', outperformed over the season by both Oscar and Mata. Again, he might well do even better next season, having had a year to settle in.

I've completely lost track of what my actual point was now. I guess simply that there's not much point making a comparison like this yet. If next season they both stay relatively injury-free and play lots of games (bear in mind that Kagawa has to displace Rooney if he wants to start regularly in his best position), then this sort of analysis will be more worthwhile.
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Also Kagawa gets subbed off a lot he's only played the full 90 mins 4 times in all comps which skews his per game stats compared to Hazard who has played 90mins 20+ times so of course he will average more passes per game for example.
 
LR7 said:
Also Kagawa gets subbed off a lot he's only played the full 90 mins 4 times in all comps which skews his per game stats compared to Hazard who has played 90mins 20+ times so of course he will average more passes per game for example.
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Yet another good point in favor for Kagawa. Thanks for pointing that out.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That point is only in favour if you focus on the stats and ignore the fact that playing for 90 minutes generally reflects a good performance and getting subbed off early generally means the opposite.
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True, but I was mainly thinking about the "involvement stats", i.e. number of passes and shots.

For instance, Hazard only hits 2.3 passes more than Kagawa each game, but seeing as he often or usually plays the full 90 minutes, this gives an unfair representation in terms of involvement. There's just no way that Kagawa, who usually gets subbed off around the 70th minute, isn't gonna hit more than 2 passes in 20-25 minutes. That's just impossible.
 
Seeing as Kagawa's played at least half his games centrally you'd expect him to see a lot more of the ball than, Hazard so not sure why any of that matters tbh.

If anything the fact it's even close shows how peripheral Kagawa has been in a lot of games this season.
 
LR7 said:
Also Kagawa gets subbed off a lot he's only played the full 90 mins 4 times in all comps which skews his per game stats compared to Hazard who has played 90mins 20+ times so of course he will average more passes per game for example.
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Well, by per game I actually meant stats per minute as well, so there'd be no skewing there.

Again, it's a pointless analysis. Given that they're pretty close, you could simply argue that the fact that Hazard's been given more than twice as much playing time shows that he's had a far more successful season. But that would be equally flawed logic, since Kagawa was never going to be ushered straight into our first team. It's not how Fergie does things, he always eases new players in, especially foreigners adapting to the country and the league.

And so I return to my original point, that until the end of next season a statistical comparison like this is worthless, because it doesn't account for context and expectations, which are probably more important than the numerical returns in a debut season. Both players have achieved roughly what might have been expected from them. That's what matters, really.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Stats averaged out over a season can be very misleading. Hazard's blown more hot and cold, from what I've seen. When he's poor he's really shit, when he's good, he's excellent.

Kagawa been a bit more consistent but his best games have been nowhere near as impressive as Hazard's best games IMO.
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Brwned said:
I think Kagawa's played like Oscar this year; promising with glimpses of real class but generally unable to really impose himself on the team. Hazard's had flashes where he's been the team's key player. Kagawa's not there yet.
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Agree with both, Hazard has alot of pace and energy... he constantly gets himself into positions where he can get on the ball, in addition to this he's a very direct footballer, capable of taking the game to the opposition whenever he wants.

Kagawa is a step behind, but in my opinion he shouldn't model his game and attempt to compete with a Hazard - lacks the natural athletic ability of Hazard, but there is no excuse for him not competing with the likes of Mata/Silva next year. He has the intelligence, technical ability and the finishing ability to rack up plenty of goals/assists for this United side which will be a better outfit than it is this season.
 
Brightonian said:
Well, by per game I actually meant stats per minute as well, so there'd be no skewing there.

Again, it's a pointless analysis. Given that they're pretty close, you could simply argue that the fact that Hazard's been given more than twice as much playing time shows that he's had a far more successful season. But that would be equally flawed logic, since Kagawa was never going to be ushered straight into our first team. It's not how Fergie does things, he always eases new players in, especially foreigners adapting to the country and the league.

And so I return to my original point, that until the end of next season a statistical comparison like this is worthless, because it doesn't account for context and expectations, which are probably more important than the numerical returns in a debut season. Both players have achieved roughly what might have been expected from them. That's what matters, really.
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I'm not actually on either side of this debate I just thought those stats would be skewed a bit given Kagawa's games are almost always cut short.
I agree with you though there could be plenty of reasons for that; easing him in like you said or he could just be a player like Cleverley/Özil who tend to run out of steam a bit towards the end of games.

I'd guess Mad Winger decided to do the statistical comparison because of Hazard getting the PFA award nomination?
 
Mad Winger said:
Then again we can twist it around and say that he created a chance, but it was a difficult ball to reach none the less!

Winger A makes a perfect pass which should result in an assist, but the striker fecks it up, so it doesn't go down in the stats as a "key pass". Winger B makes an average(or even bad pass!), but the striker makes the best of it, puts himself in a good position, and fires off a shot. Suddenly, Winger B has made a nice key pass.

You see where I'm going with this? Certain stats can be misleading, yes. But it's the only thing we can use for attacking players, who's main job is to score and assist. As long as you do both at a reasonable rate, then you are doing your job.
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You can use your eyes. I find it works best. Probably what managers do when signing a player to.
 
acnumber9 said:
You can use your eyes. I find it works best. Probably what managers do when signing a player to.
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Well, that's what I did as well. I used my eyes, and suspected that Hazard didn't have a much better season than Kagawa. He only had more influence because: A) he got more playtime and B) he plays for a weaker team.

In terms of what both players actually have produced in the playtime they've been given, they're pretty equal, with Kagawa actually edging it. There are in other words arguments for both players. Hazard has been more important for Chelsea and therefore played more, but he hasn't done better than Kagawa when he's actually played.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying that Kagawa has had a better season than Hazard. I'm just saying that it's preposterous to say that Hazard has had a great season, and while Kagawa has only been decent. When people make claims like these, the stats usually also work in their favor somehow. This time it clearly doesn't. Are we gonna disregard that just because Hazard is an expensive, overhyped, flair-player who's had more playtime? I know that we live in a muppet world, but that's taking it too far for me...
 
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