According to metro.co.uk, contact has been made with Lionel Messi regarding a possible move to Manchester United. What are your thoughts?

Dont compare Messi to Hazard, not the same category. Hazard could be compared to Sanchez not Messi.
In PL defenses are lacking tactical abilities and spaces are wide open, its easier to dribble there by far, look at Hazard he cant dribble outside PL the way he does in.
Ronaldo and Suarez couldnt dribble like they used to in England, their dribble per game fell to half of their previous stats in Spain. At the opposite, Alexis Sanchez doubled his amount of dribbles per game in his first season.
What Alexis is doing in PL, he couldnt do half of it in Spain or the ''supposed weak'' Serie A.

For Messi, he does what he does because he is out of this world, no league excuse, he does the same in CL and he completely humiliated the arguably best English team of the last 5 years Manchester City, let alone weak New castle, West brom, Sunderland and co....

I'm comparing them in only one category which is "dribbling" which is Hazard had more successful dribbles than Messi and arguably better at dribbling..

I think you are living in your own world, just my opinion. If you find one non-Chelsea fan sharing your view then i would apologise.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Stats don't lie that Hazard is a better dribbler than Messi.. at least last year.

Well if you count his useless dribbles near the corner like Neymar used to do in the past, when he was non effective...

Messi's dribble against Chelsea when he fell down and Lampard took the ball from him and Barcelona conceded a goal by Ramies was very effective. I agree.

Let's stay on topic please. I don't want to argue about it.

Yeah when a supposed big club played in his own Penalty era for 90 minutes because too affraid from getting outplayed.
Where is Hazard by the way ? OK then stay in topic first why bringing Hazard who is inexistant as a player atm ?

Comparing to Hazard to Messi is a crime, in ALL departments.

Hazard is probably the best dribbler in EPL but he's no where as effective and as cool as Messi, No one has the jaw dropping ability like Messi if you ever watch enough Barca's game(s). Im not even talking about when he's surrounded by >4 players... imagine how much space he creates for this mates?

It's like comparing any striker to Ronaldo in term of scoring would be a crime. Leave him alone for 1 sec then you dead... he can play like crap the whole game and give him 2 chances then you dead.

Watching Messi is not only watching football game anymore, it's watching magic (ok he has some crap games just like everyone else, but that's not much).

The Media has blinded everyone it seems that you can't even accept that there is one that can do better than him at one of the things in football. Just go watch some videos if you have never watched a Chelsea game and also go Check stats. Don't just reply cluelessly.

Jeez, people, calm the hell down. @tiki: I'm guessing Alex' first comment was stating the fact that players, who like to dribble, get kicked around a lot, which is true. He didn't say that Hazard is a better dribbler than Messi (at least in his first comment), he simply used the best dribbler in the BPL - Hazard - as an example to prove his point. Unnecessary attack of yours.

@Alex: Just no. There's no way on earth that Hazard is a better dribbler than Messi. He's arguably the second best dribbler after Messi, but even the #2 doesn't come close to Messi's abilities on the ball, whether it's Neymar, Hazard, Robben or anyone else.

Fine. Now let's talk logic shall we? How would one judge who is better at dribbling than another? is there anything else better than stats at this point? If so then enlighten me please.

@Juan Mata that's how it all started he came out of nowhere just because someone compared something with Messi which I mentioned "dribbling".

Hell, if I say John Terry is better at defending than Messi Barcelona and Messi fans will come to convince me that NO WAY Terry is better than Messi at Defending..

there is nothing wrong with what alex said, if the stats say that hazard is better than messi in dribbling then who the F... are you to say it's not true,

@KTB

While it is true that EPL defenders would kick at Messi more often, I don't doubt that Messi would bulk up to the needs of the EPL within a year. We've seen the same from both Alexis and Ozil, who have put on more weight to ride the heavy challenges more easily. Moreover, like @Tiki said, dribbling is easier in EPL because the EPL teams don't tend to transition too heavily from attack and defense. They prefer a quicker transition, which leaves lots of space in between midfield and defense lines. That's why players like Alexis increase their dribbling stats when going from La Liga to EPL, but Ronaldo and Suarez half their dribbling stats when going EPL to La Liga.

Messi will find it easier to dribble in the EPL, but will be hacked down more often. Assuming he doesn't get injured at all during an EPL season and manages to play 38 games (which would be quite miraculous), it is an interesting question to raise if the increase in space will lead to him scoring more goals or not. I think that his goal-scoring exploits will increase only if he is playing with Barcelona. If he transfers to an EPL team, as @Tuan had said, the distinct difference in style will drastically affect Messi's goal-scoring record. He is, in quite the literal sense, a Barcelona player.

i tend to agree with Dynastian98.. EPL defenders are rough but Messi is MESSI! u hardly see Messi falls in any Barcelona games. that guy just simply run pass through defenders or get back up ASAP and continue dribbling.. he is not known to be a player that falls easily after being tackled.. :l

for the statisticians to settle the argument:

Messi is by far a better dribbler than any player in the planet for the past 3 years. Its a crime to count with stats between the 2 because Hazard is playing in the BPL and Messi is playing in la liga. In la lira Messi can average around 3-7 dribbles per game which is really good. When he played against man city. he made 10 dribbles in a single game twice. He did the same against Arsenal, United and chelsea (he made 7-8 dribbles against chelsea). Still the point is BPL defenders give too much space so its easy to dribble. Ronaldo made 4 dribbles against liverpool in his worst dribbling season. He made 8 dribbles against city in 2013 which is pretty high for the Real madrid Ronaldo. But in la liga. He averages 1.8 to 2.2 dribbles per game in his last 5 years. His highest was 3.3 or 3.6 when it was his first season for madrid, the days when he was more of a dribbler than a goalscorer. Players like Nolito, Neymar, Messi, Modric, Ronaldo, Iniesta etc would have twice or even more amount of dribbles if they played in the BPL.

Than again if Hazard could adapt in La liga he could be 2nd highest dribbler or even first (if messi was injured)

However I do agree Messi would get more injuries in the BPL than in la liga cause like everyone else said, BPL is more of a physical battle between defenders and strikers. This is why I keep telling that if a Player can keep consistency without getting injured is a very good STRENGTH any club would want a player that can withstand painful injuries no matter what the cost.

"it is an interesting question to raise if the increase in space will lead to him scoring more goals or not.....Messi will find it easier to dribble in the EPL, but will be hacked down more often"

Agreed. However I'm quite certain he wouldn't score as many goals in the BPL because it's more of a physical battle between defenders and strikers, thus he'd just get kicked down by weaker defenders. So the dribbles wouldn't lead to as much. Then again, he's the worlds best player do who knows.

I was talking about last year @rayrex & ashwin

lol, I was super happy when I saw Ronaldo on the list, than I noticed Ranked 139 hahaha :D

But I am actually not surprised if we were to only judge last year. I know that hazard made the most dribbles in the UCL last season as well (appearance + rate). So i give props to hazard for showing his capabilities last year, hope he regains his form asap.

But I still see messi as a better dribbler however Hazard does have some resemblance to messi when it comes to dribbling.

I hope so, he needs his confidence back. As for Ronaldo he was the best dribbler but in the last years he does not rely on dribbling more often as before. He changed his game style to be the target man and have more attacking vision to score goals. As in over all, even though Hazard is way younger than both Messi and Ronaldo He is still far away from Messi's and Ronaldo's level but he has the time to improve his game. I'm just afraid that Real Madrid will steal him this summer since RM is his childhood favorite club and I don't know what is going on with him after Eva's incident. Yesterday however he was the old Hazard he did everything last night except getting unlucky with a wonderful save by Butland who saved Stoke on many occasions.