How Eden Hazard rolled with the punches to become Chelsea’s big hitter

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/apr/27/eden-hazard-chelsea-jose-mourinho

Version 0 of 1.

As Mike Tyson once suggested, with his usual delicacy, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. On the face of it this is probably not an obvious contender for any list of inspirational sporting quotes pinned to the fridge of Eden Hazard, the most decorative influence in Chelsea’s team of champions-elect. Hazard is a deserving choice as the PFA’s player of the year, with 13 goals and plenty of eye-catching attacking intent. And yet perhaps the most intriguing part of his progress this season has been an ability to adapt, to roll with the punches, to soak up a little pain.

Hazard’s more delicate skills have been obvious ever since he first emerged at Lille. Four years ago Joe Cole was already comparing his new team-mate to Lionel Messi, and it isn’t hard to see why. Chelsea’s No10 can dribble, finish and pass. He has a thrillingly explosive lateral spring with the ball at his feet. To watch him for a moment is to recognise here is a player with that rare, indefinably A-list combination of craft and physique.

Not to mention bravery, too. In part this is a physical thing. Hazard is a unique Premier League player for many reasons. For a start no one else out there gets kicked quite so much. The same players who voted for Hazard have also spent much of the season leaving bruises on his shins, the sincerest form of Premier League flattery. To date Hazard has been fouled 100 times, ahead of Raheem Sterling on 79 and Alexis Sánchez on 68. Not only is he the first player to reach the magic three figures since Kevin Davies in 2007-08, but chuck in 34 fouls in the Champions League and Hazard must be a contender for the most fouled player in a single English season in the modern era.

Beyond the shin-raking, Hazard has been brave in other ways. Without once donning an elaborately bandaged headband, without pointing or shouting or indeed seeming to talk very much at all, he has led the team from the front, a general in mufti. That this has come against expectation, even from some inside the club, is easily overlooked.

For a while this time last year there was a chance Hazard might end up leaving Chelsea. He was singled out for some brutal public criticism by José Mourinho over a lack of defensive diligence in the defeat by Atlético Madrid at Stamford Bridge. After the final home league game against Norwich City Hazard could be seen crawling down the Fulham Road besieged by fans leaning in through his car window begging him to stay (in typically polite Hazard fashion it took 15 minutes to get through Fulham Broadway: this is a player whose own father has raised with Mourinho whether his son may just be too nice to do justice to his high-end talent).

Not only did Hazard stay, he has taken huge responsibility in a title-chasing team. In England the assumption is often that bravery in football is all about sticking your head into a pile of studs but it is also a matter of courage on the ball and the ability to express your creative gifts under pressure. Hazard has done all of this at Chelsea while in many ways playing a lone hand, the only player in the first XI with the will and the freedom to attack with the ball at his feet, and to do so when Chelsea needed him most.

This is the essence of Hazard’s improvement this year. The outline stats are similar to last. In 33 Premier League starts Hazard has 13 goals and eight assists, compared with 14 and seven in 32 starts last year and nine and 11 in 31 in his first season. The difference lies in his sense of timing. Hazard has come on strong as the season has dragged and other Chelsea players have faded. Last season he didn’t register a Premier League assist after the first day of March. This year he has been thrillingly resolute, playing a direct role in 18 goals since Christmas and scoring four times in his past eight matches at a time when Chelsea had begun to lose a little zip. Not only has he scored or assisted against Arsenal, Tottenham, Southampton, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United, seven of his Premier League goals have come in matches that were drawn or won by a single goal.

Beyond this Hazard has simply been better everywhere, making more passes, more tackles and more interceptions, and chucking in 38 inaccurate crosses compared with 157 in his first two seasons. In this respect there has been a slight tactical shift. Hazard doesn’t exactly tackle back, but he rarely stops running, plays more centrally when needed and generally carries more of the weight of Mourinho’s winning defensive paranoia.

There is even something telling in the manner of Hazard’s survival as a creative midfielder in this Mourinho team. Where many have fallen – Juan Mata, André Schürrle, Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne: we will remember them – Hazard has succeeded not by subsuming his creative urges but in part by becoming bolder. He has run more, not less, at defenders, making 156 dribbles compared with 62 in his first season, and carrying the ball forward from anywhere close to the halfway line.

It is here, in the slightly sandpapery interaction between a daintily skilled attacker and the world’s most renowned defensive technician that the key to his future prospects lies. It is no secret why Hazard has been fouled so often. Stop him and often you have eradicated at a single stoke Chelsea’s ability to beat a man from a standing start, to drive the game off the cuff, as Paris Saint-Germain did with some success at Stamford Bridge, a throng of red shirts closing in whenever Hazard picked the ball.

This Chelsea team are still a work in progress. Juan Cuadrado will presumably in time provide some relief as a direct, goalscoring threat on the other wing, although the Colombian has yet to play 90 minutes. Beyond that providing Chelsea’s best player with a genuinely consistent partner in creative wide play must surely be a priority.

Hazard will avoid for now the most common fate of the PFA player of the year. The past two – Gareth Bale and Luis Suárez – have moved abroad immediately, while the winners in five of the past eight seasons are at Real Madrid or Barcelona. But quite what Mourinho does from here with his leader from the left flank looks a fascinating test of ambition and imagination.