How Hazard is working on being Chelsea’s new special one
EDEN HAZARD admits his current aim in life is keeping Jose Mourinho happy.
Chelsea’s manager has never been slow to let creative attackers such as Hazard know they are also expected to weigh in with defensive duties.
‘That’s normal because that’s his job and if we’re bad, he says so,’ said Hazard last week. ‘Sometimes we’re a bit scared of him. But he’s a very sincere manager and is very clear about what he wants.’
Hazard then qualifies his statement, trying to explain better the charisma of his manager. ‘It’s not exactly that we’re scared of him. It’s just that he’s very clear about what he says and sometimes that can be a little bit shocking. But we’re all professional footballers and we’re used to criticism, so it’s up to us to make him happy.’
And it seems the 22-year-old is beginning to make Mourinho happy. There was a time when Hazard’s form and Mourinho’s comments suggested he might struggle to adapt to his new manager. Not least last month, when he was late back to training after losing his passport on a trip back to his former club Lille — an episode that left Mourinho none too impressed and Hazard dropped.
Then, in the 4-3 Premier League win at Sunderland earlier this month, Hazard finally seemed to get it, excelling in both attacking and defensive play, contributing two goals and demonstrating his full range of creativity. Mourinho, it seems, was impressed, saying: ‘We had a special Hazard,’ and praising his ‘ambition from the first to the last minute’. But even then he tempered his warm words with the observation that ‘sometimes he does incredible things and, after that, he seems to disappear from the game’.
As Hazard listens to his manager’s words read back to him, he is candid in his response. ‘There are times when I disappear out of the match, so I do want to be as consistent as possible. But what he said at Sunderland, that’s the sort of comment I want to hear more and more often, every weekend.
‘I do have matches where it’s really good and some where it’s not so good. So I’m hoping to improve my work-rate, work really hard on that and get more consistency. He’s a manager that demands a lot both in defence and in attack.’
Growing up in Braine-le-Comte in Belgium, Hazard idolised Zinedine Zidane and always had an innate desire to entertain.
‘I hope to become one of the best as that’s what people want to see, like Cristiano Ronaldo, like Messi, scoring goals. But that’s not what I am. I am who I am, with my strengths and weaknesses. It’s up to me to work on the weaknesses I have to improve further. I still have a lot of work to do — but when I’m enjoying it on the pitch, that’s when I am good.’
The £35million signing of Hazard last year was perhaps the clearest sign yet that Chelsea are attempting to embrace a more attacking style rather than the powerful, direct mode that served them so well in the past. Hazard is conscious of his role in the identity shift.
‘In the past, Chelsea have won an enormous amount of trophies with their own style. I think we need to get away from that image of the past and try to build a new team, not what it was years ago. I think it will come. I think we will improve
our game and style and we will find ourselves, but it won’t be immediate.’
First, though, both Hazard and the team have some work to do. Seven defeats, if you count the UEFA Super Cup shoot-out to Bayern Munich, since the start of the season was not the expectation when Mourinho returned. Being knocked out of the Capital One Cup by Sunderland last Tuesday was just the latest setback in a season of inconsistency. Nevertheless, they are just three points off league leaders Liverpool and can go above early pace-setters Arsenal by beating them at The Emirates tomorrow.
‘I prefer to be in the position that we are now, compared to last year! We are two points behind Arsenal, so if we win on Monday we would be above
them, and if we manage this festive fixture list properly we can see what Chelsea can do and we will see what we deserve by the end of the season.
‘At the moment we have had a bit of a reaction and are hoping that it’s going to get better. There are a lot of strong teams out there and this year we don’t know which team are going to win. There is not one single outstanding team.’
But with Mourinho’s tutoring, we may yet see the emergence of another special one at Stamford Bridge.