FOWLER Sarri’s done a brilliant job of getting Hazard’s head back in the game
Even more surprising is how well he’s playing – and both the player himself and Maurizio Sarri deserve credit for that. By all accounts, he wasn’t very happy last season and the suggestion got out that he wanted to go in the summer, with Real Madrid sniffing.
He said as much himself that he didn’t know where he would be this season. The third surprise is that Real didn’t get up to their usual tricks in trying to force a move, as they did with Thibaut Courtois.
Yet, in those circumstances, when they stay, it rarely ends well. I can think of only one who actually got better – and that was Luis Suarez.
The summer he tried to force a move to Arsenal, I was convinced that it would end in tears when he was kicked off that pre-season tour.
I remember playing alongside him soon after, in Steven Gerrard’s testimonial. Actually, I reckon the only foot he put wrong all season was when he underhit a pass to me, and didn’t put me in for a certain goal!
But even though we knew he was gutted not to be moving – and would have done anything to go – he never let it show. It probably improved him, in fact. Hazard seems to have started like that and that could make a huge difference to Chelsea’s season. I don’t know what’s been said behind the scenes or if he’s got an agreement, but Sarri’s management has been spot-on.
He’s made it about the team, about the games, about the players and about the football... not any of the dramas off the pitch like they had last season. In fact, virtually every game, it was about who they hadn’t signed, rather than the players they had. Sarri (below) has changed that, he’s put the focus on what Hazard is doing, not what he wants to do, or wanted to do in the summer.
Maybe that’s what the player needs. The club has been stabilised, no doubt. There is a sense of them heading in the right direction as a team, and there is an efficiency about them, which was lacking last season.
It’s certainly helped in terms of results. I know people are saying they’ve had an easy run and not really played anyone. My response? That does my head in! It’s rubbish. You can only go out and beat the team in front of you, and they’ve done exactly that.
Hazard has been very much part of that.
And just possibly, what we’re seeing now is him actually showing himself – showing he’s one of those players who has that character and mentality to use his previous unhappiness to inspire himself. He’s certainly showing himself to be the player we all knew he could be.
But I would urge a note of caution. The one problem I can foresee is that he will eventually get frustrated at being played out on the left, in a role that isn’t quite central to the team.
It’s fine now, with them winning and attacking, but if Chelsea are a bit off and they get a bit strangled or isolated up front, then you could see him wanting to shift to a more central role.
I’m not trying to be naughty with him or Chelsea, I’m not saying any of this as a negative. I’ve been impressed with his attitude and their resolve, but it’s too early to say the sun is permanently shining for Hazard just yet. West Ham may be a big test of that.