Hazard bears the brunt
PSG players did a hatchet job on Blues’ playmaker in Paris encounter
THERE are times when you watch Eden Hazard and wonder how the Chelsea winger is supposed to cope with all this attention. He does not seek fame, is rarely pictured outside of a football stadium and behaves impeccably when he is wearing Chelsea colours.
Instead Hazard pays a heavy price for those dancing feet because whenever he steps on to a football pitch he is kicked all over it.
At the Parc des Princes, in the Champions League clash against Paris SaintGermain on Tuesday night, he was fouled more times than any other player so far this season in the competition.
Nine free-kicks borders on vendetta status and it is not a record Laurent Blanc’s side should be proud of after this filthy first leg.
This is the list of PSG players who nailed Hazard in Paris and it does not make for good reading: Marco Verratti (3), Gregory van der Wiel (2), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (1), Blaise Matuidi (1), David Luiz (1), Maxwell (1).
This is not the way this great game is meant to be played.
They took it in turns to put the reducer on Chelsea’s left winger, queueing up whenever – and sadly, wherever – he was in possession.
To think that the Parisians once coveted Hazard, before he signed his new supercontract last week, this had the stench of retribution for ignoring their passionate advances.
Verratti was easily the worst culprit, slicing through him on a night when Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir should have shown far more than two yellow cards to PSG players.
The PSG midfielder covered more ground – most of it spent chasing Hazard around the field – than any other player on the pitch in this first leg.
Mourinho made a bee-line for him afterwards, pointing out the hatchet man in this PSG team after a series of assaults on the Chelsea forward.
“In England you like to bring up some other discussions, but this point is important because of what happened today,” declared Mourinho.
“For example, what happened with Verratti. If it is another player, they will stay on the floor, they will roll on the grass and scream – these kids will ask for cards. This kid Hazard is pure. When he goes to the floor it is for a reason and there were nine fouls on him. In the Premier League it is exactly the same, but it is only now that you ask this question.”
Quite how the Chelsea forward keeps his composure, keeping his mouth shut when the temptation was to complain to the referee is a skill in itself.
Is this how we want the modern game to be played, to watch the artists taken out by the cloggers waiting their turn to mug him in midfield? Is he supposed to put up with this because he is paid £200 000 a week, that somehow the cash is a cushion for some of the crash landings?
If there is an argument that he goes down too softly it is because every time he dips his shoulder, there was a threat that some bully in a PSG shirt would try to take him out.
There are few finer sights in football than watching Hazard as he glides across some of the best defences in the game before picking out a killer pass. Despite the thunderous challenges, his appetite is undiminished.
“It happens game after game,” added Mourinho. “Give cards to the opponents, follow the rules of the game and it is as simple as that.”
These latest attacks are no accident, they are not a freak of football because the trend and temptation to rough him up in the Premier League is also too much for some.
This season, according to the analysts Opta, the Belgian winger has been fouled a staggering 74 times, more than any other player in England.
Mourinho called it right, demanding protection for Hazard after another night when he was an obvious target for another savaging. – Daily Mail