Sarri expects fit-again Hazard to play a role against Palace
LONDON: Maurizio Sarri expects Eden Hazard to feature against Crystal Palace on Sunday after the Chelsea star recovered from the back injury that sidelined him for two weeks.
Hazard had missed Chelsea’s last three games but he was fit enough to train with his teammates in the latter part of this week.
Blues manager Sarri is confident Hazard will be involved when Palace visit Stamford Bridge, but he is still waiting to decide whether the Belgian playmaker will start or come off the bench.
“Yesterday Eden had a large part of training with the team,” Sarri told reporters on Friday.
“Maybe he will not be ready to play for 90 minutes at the moment because it was his first training in the last two weeks.
“But probably he will be able to play for 40, 45 minutes. So for us it’s important.” Dhofar hold the lead in the Omantel League title race as the winter season draws to a close with two rounds to play. The ten times league winners defeated Muscat 3-1 on Friday at the Seeb Sports Stadium in the 11th round of Omantel League. Motaz Saleh commenced scoring in the match for Dhofar in the eighth minute and Abdul Qader Faal equalised for Muscat in the 33th minute. In the second half, the Salalah giants registered a strong attack as Oudai Khader netted the second and third goal in the 60th and 75th minutes respectively. With the victory, Dhofar strengthened the lead in Omantel League with 29 points while Muscat have 20 points in the fourth place. The Al Suwaiq and Al Rustaq match finished in a goalless draw and both teams added one point to their credit. The former champion is placed at ninth place with 14 points while Al Rustaq is in the tenth position.
Whether Hazard will start on Sunday remains to be seen as Sarri added: “I don’t know, I want to speak with him first.”
Hazard’s presence would be a
Majees, who are currently at the 14th place with five points in danger zone, recorded their first win in the league over Sur by 1-0. Abdul Rahman al Balushi netted the winning goal in the 55th minute while his colleague Criset Deimi missed the chance to add the second goal as he did not score from a penalty in the second half.
Meanwhile, Al Nahdha secured an important victory against Mirbat 1-0 as they increased their tally to 22 points at second place while Mirbat are in third position with 22 points. The national team player Mohammed al Shiba netted the winning goal for Al Nahdha.
Saham failed to keep the four-point gap with Al Nasr as they were defeated by 2-1. Shika Surri and Omar al Malki netted for Al Nasr while Mohammed al Ghassani scored for Saham. Al Nasr jumped to seventh place with 16 points while Saham freezed with 17 points at sixth place.
At Seeb Sports Stadium, Oman Club registered a crucial 2-1 win over the runner-up, Al Shabab. Yazed al Rawahi netted the first goal for Oman while Tariq al Mahrouqi added the second goal. In the second half, Omaro Jenyat reduced the gap as he scored the first goal for Al Shabab.
With both teams languishing at the bottom rung of the points table, Oman Club now have nine points and positioned in the 11th place while Al Shabab have the same points in the 13th place.
Al Oruba benefited in this round when they edged Sohar 2-1 to reach the eighth place with 15 points while Sohar remain on 17 points in the fifth place. major boost for Chelsea after his blistering start to the season.
The 27-year-old has scored eight times for Chelsea, with his superb solo strike in a League Cup win at Liverpool ranking as a contender for goal of the season.
Chelsea sit in third place in the Premier League, two points behind leaders Manchester City, after a fine start to the campaign.
Ahead of the Palace clash, Sarri has taken the intriguing decision to make Gary Cahill his official club captain, even though the centre-back has barely featured this term.
Cahill had previously admitted he could have to leave Chelsea for regular first-team football, but Sarri has endorsed his Blues future by reappointing him as skipper after squad’s opinion.
“The captain is Cahill, and if he’s not on the pitch it’s (Cesar) Azpilicueta,” Sarri said.
“Our captain is Cahill because Cahill was the captain last season and I have spoken with his mates, and everybody told me that he was really a very good captain.”
Asked whether appointing Cahill as captain means he will definitely stay at Chelsea at least until the end of the season, Sarri said: “I don’t know. It depends on him, I think.
“He played very often in the last seven, eight matches. It depends on him, on the club I think, but for me Cahill is very important on the pitch but also off the pitch.” canvassing his