During Chelsea FC‘s league title winning season of 2014-15 Eden Hazard took home PFA Player of the Year honors. Last season, as the Blues suffered through an awful title defense and fell all the way down to mid table, Hazard struggled mightily. He didn’t even score a Premier League goal until April 23rd, and tallied just four on the season.
Distracted by injuries, unsettling and transfer talk, Eden Hazard slumped to quite possibly the worst form of his life last year.
He said himself that it would be hard to turn down a move to Paris Saint-Germain and there was a lot of talk in the media of his Chelsea days being over. Although Hazard transfer rumors seem to keep popping up here and there, you can be pretty sure that he’ll be at Stamford Bridge this season.
You can also be sure that how he performs will have a profound impact on the kind of season Chelsea has. Blues boss Antonio Conte has said that team cohesiveness, truly becoming a family, will be the important factor for this team in 2016-17. (More on that here)
He is completely correct, but also important is the reality of Eden Hazard being the blues alpha dog again.
Real Madrid absolutely carved up Chelsea yesterday, resulting in a dominating 3-0 box score at half time. It wasn’t until Hazard showed up later that Chelsea were able to finally score and window dress the result.
Conte did find time to praise Hazard, who came on as a substitute in the 67th minute, and scored two goals on two breakaways. The first came in the 80′ and again in stoppage time.
“Hazard, he’s recovering the good shape,” he said.
“I liked him in this position, like a forward. I think he can be a good solution for us. Also to play winger but also to play like a second forward. He must improve his [fitness], but he’s working, he’s working. He knows that his shape can improve a lot, in the same way as the other players.”
When Hazard came on, it provided one of the loudest crowd roars of the entire day. Nearly 106,000 attended the match at The Big House, the most in Chelsea history and the second highest out of any match on American soil.
In post game press conference Eden Hazard transfer rumors came up and Real Madrid Manager Zinedine Zidane answered by heaping praise on the big time Belgian
“There are rumors about tons of players potentially linked with this club,” the former France national team captain told the media (audio available at this link).
“He is a very, very good player. Obviously all clubs want the best players, but he is a Chelsea player.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication.
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