Player of the Year Comparison: Hazard (14-15) vs Mahrez (15-16)

Last week Riyad Mahrez was given the 2016 Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award.  This week, his Leicester City side won the club’s first top division title ever.  However, they didn’t clinch the title with a win, they clinched it with a Tottenham draw, thanks to last season’s Player of the Year, Eden Hazard.

Hazard has followed up his POTY campaign with a pretty terrible season, seeing his Chelsea side drop out of both the Champions League and Europa League contention. However he has shown the quality he had last season in his last couple of games, specifically against Tottenham where he came off the bench to score a gem of a goal to secure Leicester the title.  As the two players are quite similar, the natural question to ask is, who had a better season: Mahrez this year or Hazard last year?

Goal Scoring

One of the big features of Mahrez’s season has been his ability to score goals.  The Algerian is second on his team and first in the league among non-strikers with 13 non penalty goals through 36 games.  Hazard’s goals have dried up this season, all three have come in the last two games, but last season he was a pretty consistent source of goals. The Belgian had 11 non penalty goals to help lift Chelsea to the title.  When changed to per 90 numbers, Mahrez has scored 0.4 non penalty goals per 90 while Hazard managed 0.29 non penalty goals per 90.

Of course goals don’t come without shots, and looking at shot numbers can tell a lot about goal scoring ability.  Looking at the shots numbers, Mahrez’s shooting numbers also look slightly better than Hazard’s.  Leicester’s superstar has registered 2.57 shots per 90 minutes and 1.48 shots inside the box p90, while Hazard averaged 2.08 and 1.31 (both p90).

Dribbling

Both of these two are special because of their end product, but they’re both known for their dribbling skills and ability to beat a man.  Both are great dribblers, but this is where Hazard was truly fantastic.  Mahrez’s 3.74 take ons per 90 minutes is very good and puts him second in the league this season, among players with at least 2000 minutes played.  Hazard though was on another level.  He averaged 4.8 take ons per 90 minutes in his player of the year season, more than anyone else in the league in that season and more than anyone this season.

Chances Created

One of the most important jobs of a winger is to create chances.  Both Mahrez and Hazard were second on their team in terms of chances created during their player of the season campaigns.  Compared to each other, Mahrez has 0.35 assists per 90 minutes compared to Hazard registering 0.24 assists per 90 minutes.  Of course, assists aren’t a great way of measuring creativity, since they are reliant on strikers finishing chances.  In terms of chances created, Mahrez created 1.76 chances per 90 minutes, while Hazard created 2.64 chances per 90 minutes.

So, while Mahrez has more assists than Hazard had, the Belgian probably had a better creative season.  The crazy rate at which Mahrez’s chances were finished, one in every four or 25% of chances created by Mahrez turned into a goal, where the league average is closer to 9-10%, suggests there may be a bit of good fortune in his assist numbers.

Mahrez looks like he is having a slightly better goal scoring season than Hazard had, while it looks like Hazard was a bit better creatively.  But they obviously both enjoyed magical seasons.  They both led their teams to the Premier League title and both were the best player in their title winning sides, both with their own similar but slightly different style.

*All statistics in this article are from Squawka