Eden’s project…he’d just love a Belgium team full of Hazards
Conte hints it’s over for Terry Mourinho faces striker crisis as
ANTONIO CONTE says Chelsea will be at full strength against Manchester United tonight.
And that could mean captain John Terry has played his last game for the club at 36.
The Blues legend has been a bit-part player this season but has been involved in FA Cup matches as manager Conte opted to give fringe players a chance in the competition.
However, the Italian has made no promises to Terry or Asmir Begovic and Kurt Zouma, who have also had to wait their turn.
“When you arrive at this level of the FA Cup it’s a top competition for all, so, for this reason, I want to make the best decision for the game against United,” said Conte.
“We didn’t play during the week. We have to play Monday and Monday, and then we play on Saturday.
“I don’t see the necessity of resting people. Also because United will do the same against us, pick their best.”
Conte seemed to defend his position to Terry when he added: “I didn’t promise anything to anyone. No. I didn’t promise anything in the FA Cup. Nothing.”
His United rival Jose Mourinho won the Premier League three times at Chelsea along with three League Cups and the FA Cup.
Conte said he would love to match all that.
“I think Jose wrote a good part of the history of Chelsea,” he said. “He won a lot. He did a great job here. It’s important not to forget this.
“His history with Chelsea was great. I know he’s in the heart of Chelsea’s fans and he deserves it. For sure, I hope to emulate his wins here.” EDEN HAZARD’S dream is to have all four Hazard brothers in the same Belgium national team. Never mind the FA Cup or the Champions League, the Dukes of Hazard must rule Belgium first.
He may have a while to wait. Eden, 26, and Thorgan, 23, who was at Chelsea and now plays for Borussia Moenchengladbach, have appeared together, against Holland in November. Kylian, 21, is with Ujpest in Hungary, but the youngest, Ethan, is only 13 and playing junior football in Belgium.
Still, give it a few years and that should be a pretty formidable five-a-side team. And, the eldest Hazard brother reveals, his kids – Yannis, 6, Leo, 4, and Samy, 2 – are already showing an interest in the game in back-garden kickabouts with dad. It could be a Hazard dynasty managed by his dad Thierry, who played in the Belgian third division, and mum Carine, who also played.
Hazard, who picked up the Premier League Goal of the Month award for his stunning solo against Arsenal in Chelsea’s 3-1 win in February, grabbed another superb effort to take it to 11 for the season in the 2-1 victory at West Ham last Monday night that re-established his team’s lead at the top of the table to 10 points. Tonight he faces his old manager Jose Mourinho and his Manchester United team in the FA Cup quarterfinal at Stamford Bridge. It is a competition he has never won, like the Champions League. But does he obsess about it? Does he heck. “My dream is to play with all my brothers in the national team,” says Hazard. “I’ve played with Thorgan once so far. I hope Kylian will play, but Ethan is only 13. “It was emotional for my parents, when we played together. It’s very rare in football.” For a player ranked up there with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as among the very best in the world, Hazard is very laid back. “Family is the a collision with the defender. Rooney’s injury also raises a question mark over his fitness for England’s forthcoming internationals against Germany and Lithuania later this month.
The absence of any recognised striker is a serious blow to United’s chances of staying in the competition they won last season.
Mourinho vowed last week to field as strong a side as possible for the game against his former club even though it is sandwiched between the two legs against Rostov in the last 16 in the Europa League, which offers the winners a route into the Champions League.
He said then: “It’s just a game that comes in the wrong moment for us, because the Europa League is a competition that can give us a Champions League spot and the FA Cup does not. So the Europa League is more most important thing for me,” he says. “If you told me to choose between family and football then it is no choice. I’m OK at switching off from football. For me, when the game is finished, it’s finished.
“I don’t watch a lot. Only if my friends or brothers are playing. My kids watch more than me! If I start to watch, they want to play in the garden. They play everywhere, even inside the house.”
But do not get the impression that Hazard does not care. There is a steely determination inside the Belgium captain to prove that last season’s miserable campaign, when he struggled with a hip injury as Chelsea finished 10th and Mourinho departed before Christmas, was a one-off. A blip. He says: “All of us have had more motivation this year, because you don’t want things to be the same as last season. You know you are a better player than last season, so you have to do better.
“We have all had something to prove. When you play a bad game, next time you have to prove that the bad game was a mistake.”
The niggling hip problem that troubled Hazard last year was the reason, he says, for his dramatic drop in form from the previous season’s title campaign. “I started last season with pain,” he says. “I remember the game at Leicester I had pain in my hip.”
That was the game when Hazard seemed to substitute important than the FA Cup for us.” Meanwhile, Mourinho has improbably claimed some of the credit for Chelsea’s Premier League title charge – because of his failures at Stamford Bridge last season.
He insists Antonio Conte has had it easy this season because Chelsea have not been burdened by any European commitments.
Mourinho was sacked midway through last season after Chelsea had made a disastrous start to their championship defence. They were 16th when he left, eventually finished 10th under caretaker Guus Hiddink, did not win either of the domestic cup competitions and failed to qualify for Europe.
Now he says their lack of fixtures this season has played a huge part in their domination of the title race – runaway leaders Chelsea will play a maximum of only 47 games this season if they go all the way in the FA Cup