It's time we accept Higuain is an elite striker

Calling Higgy elite is an epitome of the lack of quality in strikers. Higgy. Elite. I mean ffs.

in the time period we are now, there are maybe only 10 strikers as good or better than he is....and i'm including cristiano, neymar, messi, as strikers in that list. depends what exactly 'elite' is. i think there are amazing strikers in this era, but not sure how many i'd categorize as elite.

thing with higuain is, he'll miss the usual big game sitter, and then some. but if you put him on the same team as any of these "elite" strikers, whilst they may outshine or outperform him, the difference won't be by much, and he'll give most of them a run for their money

if elite is based on his big game performances, only few would meet that criteria. certainly for their clubs, and fewer would meet the same criteria with their national teams. higuain has good numbers for a striker, obviously when we peel through, his ucl numbers disappoint. when i think 'elite', i think of guys who'd in the peak of their powers would give guys like henry eto'o sheva (at milan, not the one at chelsea), batigol, shearer and all those kind of guys a run for their money....and imo there are very few of them

to me higuain isn't elite, but their are less than a handful who are, and even those have also had their disappearing act moments maybe not for club, but for country...so higuain not being elite isn't news. but in this era he's a striker a lot of big clubs would like to have...btw the copa america miss was garbage, was a poor angle. the misses against lyon, the world cup, and one game against barcelona, the super cup where he missed like 5, that even got iker upset, those were big time misses

Call me when he offsets these

Harmonica wrote:Call me when he offsets these

hmm.
first one is him trying to save a hopeful pass by someone else
second is a missed penalty. noone else ever misses pens right
3rd is offside anyway
4th is from a backpass from Kroos, add suprise to the reasons for a miss.

I'm sure there are worse misses by Higuain than those 4 gifs

lol that's just cos higuain's misses denied messi a world cup. elite strikers don't miss simple chances in big moments. elite strikers also don't disappear in big moments. most of these so called elite strikers in this period would bury those chances higuain missed, but alas, most of them would disappear in such games as well. i'll refer to futbol-bill's post. i won't consider any of those forwards elite; maybe zlatan, (that's because i like watching him play and seeing his goals first hand, not because of his big game impact), and suarez (cos biting aside, he had that copa america and stepped up for his country)

the others, good players in this era, but not elite imo. aguero has disappeared for argentina a bunch of times, and has disappeared in the ucl for city. him and rvp are ranked "elite" cos of the domestic rivalries that exist in the premier league; arsenal vs spurs, utd, chelsea, pool, city, are all considered big games, and these guys do well in those, so they're elite now? rvp spent more time injured for arsenal, then had two good closeout years and one for utd.

elite is a standard and not many strikers now are at that standard, unless we want to lower what we view as elite. benzema outlasted higuain, but when they were both on the same team, mourinho frequently called it a 'good headache' (after his cat jab), cos he found it hard to choose. its not like benzema was hitting 30 goals in 50 games and higuain 13 in 45....obviously benzema's the better player. but i'm wary of categories like who's elite and who isn't, cos as i said, whilst the so called elite strikers may not miss sitters, we witness them disappear

to be completely honest, calling some players 'elite' and some not is pretty arbitrary and slightly silly.

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Harmonica wrote:Call me when he offsets these

hmm.
first one is him trying to save a hopeful pass by someone else
second is a missed penalty. noone else ever misses pens right
3rd is offside anyway
4th is from a backpass from Kroos, add suprise to the reasons for a miss.

I'm sure there are worse misses by Higuain than those 4 gifs

Elite striker scores tap-in.
Elite striker scores important penalty.
Elite striker holds offside line.
Elite striker scores 1on1.
0/4
0/2 major NT-tournament titles.

During the same year, failed 1on1 against Dnpro which would have put Napoli on road to CL from EL, and penalty against Lazio which would put Napoli to CL from Serie-A.

That's the exact reason why Real Madrid got rid of him, he's not confident enough to play at that level. And he's not clutch enough to be called an elite striker.

He's very good, but bottles it every time in big games. He's awful CL record is an example. But would be great for most league teams.

I wouldn't call Higuain a world-class player just yet, he just need to improve his mentality.

Some WC/Elite players are not clutch and some not so great ( supposedly ) players are very clutch. Guys like Aguero ( NT level ) , Higuain or Rooney fall in the former category imo. I really don't care if you are an elite/wc player or not as long as you deliver when needed.

It could be said that talent wise Aguero or RVP or Rooney are better than Thomas Muller or Drogba or but I'd take him anyday over those 2.

Higuain failed as sad as it is . He could have beeen a legend right now ffs

Harmonica you realize that if he wasn't offside in that third gif there isn't a chance in hell he reaches that ball, right? His options were: stay onside and not meet the ball at all, or 2. Go offside, score (he did score that I believe) and hope the AR makes the wrong decision. Higgy made the right decision there. First gif is tough on him as well.

No excuses for the other two.

Personally I think he's not quite elite but not very far from it, I still rate him quite highly.

CBarca wrote:Harmonica you realize that if he wasn't offside in that third gif there isn't a chance in hell he reaches that ball, right? His options were: stay onside and not meet the ball at all, or 2. Go offside, score (he did score that I believe) and hope the AR makes the wrong decision. Higgy made the right decision there. First gif is tough on him as well.

No excuses for the other two.

Personally I think he's not quite elite but not very far from it, I still rate him quite highly.

Tbh Higuain is only at fault for missing that 1 vs 1 against Neuer. Personnaly I blame him for not keeping his calm that's all.

Individual



Final pass

He is rated as a chocker, and there are reasons for it , ok, but in Serie A he was always a big games player.

Re urban: he is much more complete than given credit for, and has been for quite some time.

His long range shooting is decent, he has taken quite a few of them this season and most have been on target. This might turn out to be the best season in his career if he keeps this level of consistency up.

I still think it's crazy people are throwing the kind of money around they are for players like Martial, Sterling and Benteke even when Higuain is out there for maybe a bit more. He is so much better than most people give him credit for.

In the summer you were saying how Benteke was certainly worth the money

I never said he was worth the money (though that really falls to my next point anyway). I said the money didn't matter. Please bring up my quotes and don't make things up (since your memory is obviously awful, or skewed in effort to push an agenda).

Not to mention Benteke has played very well since coming to Liverpool, and I only had a cautious optimism about his signing.

Higuain would still be a better signing, regardless of the payment, because he is an elite or very close to elite striker.

Do you deny saying Benteke is better than sturridge?

agh...Yes he is elite compared to the current crop of top strikers we have in the game today, but compared to the elites of the previous generation? Say Eto'o, Henry, Nistelrooy, Drogba, Shevshenko or Ronaldo ? No way. The only striker who can be can be compared with these guys is Suarez.

RealGunner wrote:Do you deny saying Benteke is better than sturridge?

I remember discussing the idea of it, but I don't remember outright saying that. Do you have the quote? I thought I said he could 'potentially' be better/more complete but I could be wrong.

Not that it is relevant to this discussion at all.

zizzle wrote:agh...Yes he is elite compared to the current crop of top strikers we have in the game today, but compared to the elites of the previous generation? Say Eto'o, Henry, Nistelrooy, Drogba, Shevshenko or Ronaldo ? No way. The only striker who can be can be compared with these guys is Suarez.

What about guys like Benzema and Lewandowski? Higuain isn't that far off from them, either.

zizzle wrote:agh...Yes he is elite compared to the current crop of top strikers we have in the game today, but compared to the elites of the previous generation? Say Eto'o, Henry, Nistelrooy, Drogba, Shevshenko or Ronaldo ? No way. The only striker who can be can be compared with these guys is Suarez.

i swear suarez gets more overrated by the day .

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Re urban: he is much more complete than given credit for, and has been for quite some time.

Which is what I mentioned earlier. He is more so under his freedom within Saari and previously under Benìtez who made him thrive under his bigger responsibility and Higgy returned by being excellent outside the box and with quite a vision for the pass.

Another Serie A big game resolved by him.

Robespierre wrote:Another Serie A big game resolved by him.

Oxymoron