IAN LADYMAN AND QUARTER-FINAL DRAW
THE modern football dressing room is a more forgiving place than many would imagine. Concepts of loyalty, for example, are as fluid and changeable as the make-up of the average Barclays Premier League squad.
It was interesting, therefore, to see where the congratulations went in the wake of Chelsea’s first goal yesterday afternoon. While scorer diego Costa was still picking himself up from the floor, a smiling, back- slapping congregation gathered around the provider Eden Hazard.
It was Hazard just last week, remember, who suggested in an interview in France that he quite fancied playing for Paris Saint-Germain — the day before his current club were about to play them in the Champions League.
an act of treachery in the eyes of some Chelsea supporters, it has clearly been forgotten already by those who really matter at Stamford Bridge. and perhaps that’s the way we should expect it to be.
The majority of Premier League players are the equivalent of guns for hire these days. That is one of the consequences of the globalisation of our game. Players arrive, do their bit for two or three seasons and move on.
What is certain is that Hazard didn’t play yesterday like a man with a guilty conscience. The Belgian had been largely anonymous as Chelsea lost in Paris but that wasn’t really his kind of game. Chelsea didn’t see enough of the ball for that.
Here at Stamford Bridge, however, Hazard revealed substantially more of his true self as he led the steady dismantling of a young Manchester City side who, predictably, could not carry the momentum of some first-half fortitude into the later stages of the game.
Hazard, of course, could have been a City player. Then under the management of roberto Mancini, City competed seriously with Chelsea for the winger’s signature in the summer of 2012 and only withdrew when they felt his wage requirements became prohibitive.
Much of what City’s scouts saw in Hazard back then — wit, intelligence, directness and the ability to find pockets of space — was in evidence here.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini’s decision to play 4-4-2, rather than the 4-2-3-1 system that is encouraged throughout the club, gave Hazard some crucial space in which to work and as the game progressed he used it to slowly pick the visiting rearguard apart.
City’s midfield was energetic for a while. No doubt running on some of the adrenaline provided by first-team debuts, the likes of Tosin adarabioyo filled spaces and plugged holes furiously as Chelsea dominated the possession.
Players such as Hazard relish this type of game though, lingering on the edge of the danger zone, ready to penetrate with a sharp pass or a cute run. This is exactly what Hazard did in the build-up to the opening goal in the 35th minute, darting in on the blind side to reach a Cesc Fabregas pass at the by-line and loft the ball laterally across goal on to the head of Costa.
City were soon to equalise and briefly it looked as though we may have a game. But Hazard took the contest away from City almost on his own in the early stages of the second period, providing Willian and Gary Cahill with chances to score that were duly taken and then winning and converting a free-kick shortly after the hour.
The run that brought the free-kick was typical of him, direct and powerful and terribly difficult to stop legally. The subsequent shot into the bottom corner was as accurate as we would expect, even if it was helped somewhat by a movement in the opposite direction by City goalkeeper Willy Caballero.
That goal was Hazard’s first at Stamford Bridge this season and that, of course, is the reason the 25-year- old is currently such an important topic of conversation. Player of the Year in England last season, Hazard’s decline has been startling this time round and he has on many occasions looked short on appetite.
The things we saw Hazard do here were noticeable largely because performances like this have been so rare from him in recent weeks and months. He has too often looked like a player waiting for others to solve the team’s problems, rather than a man ready to take his part of the responsibility.
He has not been the only one, of course. One of this game’s other great influences, Fabregas, has been similarly ineffectual this season and perhaps it reflects well on neither that their best performances of recent times came against what was pretty much a City reserve team.
Much will be spoken about Pellegrini’s selection over the coming days. Certainly the Chilean’s judgment will be questioned if City do not return from Kiev with a handy Champions League result this week and then prevail in the Capital One Cup final next Sunday.
Chelsea, though, can at least move forwards with their season still alive. They are not without hope in the Champions League after last week’s 2-1 defeat in Paris and will now head to Everton in the last eight of this competition.
It may well be that Hazard’s heart and mind are elsewhere already but he could still have a decisive influence on his club’s fortunes between now and midMay. It will certainly be interesting to see if he chooses to engage.