With talent that few others possess Eden Hazard should be sitting at Football’s top table, instead he is struggling for form and facing an uncertain future at Stamford Bridge
Rewind your mind back to the title clinching game for Chelsea against Crystal Palace last May. Struggling to break down Alan Pardew’s well drilled team, there was an air of exasperation enveloping around South London. Then all of a sudden, in a split second, the game had changed. Hazard picked up the ball, glided past a Palace player and exchanged passes with Willian – on the return the Belgian’s trickery won him the crucial penalty that sealed the league for the Blues. It was not so much that Hazard won the penalty that was a surprise, But rather the fact that he had the intuition to try and create something out of absolutely nothing and yet pull it off.
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For the second part of last season, it was a magic moment that Hazard so often provided for a side that had dumped the aesthetics of the early campaign for defensive solidity and security. He was rightly rewarded with both the PFA and PWA Player of the year awards and was being compared to the very best in the game, an illustration of how much he had improved. The Belgian had well and truly arrived.
Yet eight months on there has hardly been anyone more symbolic of Chelsea’s fall from grace than Hazard. In fact he has not scored again since that celebratory spring day in a goalless streak which has now stretched to an astonishing 26 games. Indeed, the wait for his 50th goal in blue colours goes on. The fact that he might never even get to touch that landmark is something that should worry Chelsea fans even more. Throughout the season it has been no secret that Hazard has looked disinterested and has not adhered to the demands of the team, something which saw him frequently criticized by former manager Jose Mourinho.
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That, however, should not be much of a surprise. During the Portuguese’s second stint as manager, there always seemed to be a degree of friction between himself and Hazard that resulted in a hot and cold relationship between the two. Incidents such as the Atletico Madrid debacle in the Champions League semi-final and Mourinho’s declaration that Hazard was the third best player in the world spring to mind. The Belgian, it seemed, never received the kind of adoration that was reserved for the likes of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard in Mourinho’s first stint.
An inability to dominate matches like he did last season has contributed significantly to the slump that Chelsea has experienced. The stoicism that so characterized him during 204-15, in the face of constant fouling from the opposition, is now being questioned. A player that has hardly had injuries in his career is now suffering frequently from a series of niggling issues which suggests he has either succumbed to the physical attention from the Premier League, or that his appetite for the contest has diminished. The latter theory, one may suggest, could be seen in Chelsea’s game against Leicester at the King Power Stadium, where Hazard limped off the field, ostensibly carrying an injury with Mourinho declaring the midfielder had made the decision himself to be substituted.
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Now 25, the Belgian should now be hitting his peak. From being one of the fan favorites last season, his relationship with the faithful has been significantly tarnished by the Mourinho situation, accused of being one of the three protagonists in the plot which lead to the ‘Special One’s’ demise. That is why there are so many questions that need answering from Hazard’s standpoint. Does he have the ambition required to reach the top tier in football with the Messi’s and Ronaldo’s or not? At his best he is certainly one of the top 10 players in the world as reflected by his 8th place finish in the Ballon D’or, despite the poor season he has had.
Hazard would do well to look at another person on that list, Neymar and look at how quickly the Brazilian has developed at the Camp Nou, nearly tripling his output from his first season in Barcelona’s treble winning season. Those two along with the likes of Antoine Griezzman, Paul Pogba and James Rodriguez are destined to be the next generation of contenders for the Ballon D’or which has been a Messi-Ronaldo duopoly over the years.
The playmaker has also spoken effusively about his time at Stamford Bridge and his contract extension last February, making him the highest paid Stamford Bridge player ever seemed to back that up. However, with all this uncertainty and the demand for the Belgian at a high, it remains to be seen how much longer he has at the Blues. For now, Chelsea fans will hope they can get their magic moments back from their main man. Form is temporary but indeed, class is permanent.
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