Chelsea star Eden Hazard says that he will play wherever manager Antonio Conte slots him, but that his role last night was not one that optimizes his talents. The Belgian said that he’s willing to play a “false number nine,” if needs be, but that he’s best suited to play out wide. In the 1-1 draw against Barcelona on Tuesday night in Champions League knockout round action, Hazard was used as an out and out striker.
“To be honest, I like the role as a false 9, but in games like that against quality opposition like Barcelona, it’s difficult,” Eden Hazard said after turning in a fine performance despite being out of position.
“You don’t get a lot of balls. I might have touched 25 balls that night and 15 of them were flying toward my head.”
“That is not really playing to my qualities. I won some aerial duels against Gerard Pique, and that’s not bad, but if I had to choose, I prefer to play like I did in the last 10 minutes, which was out wide. But it’s the manager who has the final word.”
“On the wing I feel more comfortable. That’s my place.”
Conte also used Eden Hazard as a false No.9 last season, and won every game in which he employed that tactic. The Italian has also employed the tactic in Premier League action this season, but the results were not there. The Blues have recently suffered some brutal defeats to Watford and Bournemouth.
Of course, it would have been very risky for Conte to play either of his strikers in this contest, as both Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud have not been getting a lot of playing time recently. Chelsea were rather unfortunate to not get win at home last night, as Willian was dominant, and easily could have had a hat trick instead of just the lone goal.
“In games like that you have to be 100% focused. One error, one goal,” Hazard said, echoing the sentiment of both Willian and Cesc Fabregas.
“We should have scored more,” he continued.
“We complicated it ourselves. A draw is a bad result. We won’t be able to think defensively in Barcelona.”
“If we only think about defending, we’ll be in a lot of trouble. We will go to try to win. We have to win, we have to score.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.