Somewhere along the way, Eden Hazard picked up the reputation of being mentally vulnerable when under repeated physical pressure. Neither the data nor his performances support this, at Chelsea or at Lille.
Tottenham Hotspur are one of the top practitioners of the Hack-a-Hazard method of attempting to negate Eden Hazard. They hack the Belgian with panache and abandon, with the hackery rising to meet the moment. Spurs went after his feet, ankles and knees with everything they had on that fateful night in May 2016. Hazard responded by consigning the Spurs to “kept the pressure on” commemorative DVDs.
Jose Mourinho, lover of the dark arts, thinks Eden Hazard is some weak-willed rat. Since moving to Manchester United, Mourinho tasks Ander Herrera, Marcos Rojo, Antonio Valencia or any other available Red Devil with taking Hazard out of the game psychologically by attacking him physically. Hazard scored against Mourinho’s United in the first meeting last season, and dominated the proceedings last month.
West Bromwich Albion is the latest team to try to cut Hazard down only for the Belgian to scorch them in return. If anything, the persistent fouling fuels Eden Hazard. Earlier in his Chelsea career he may have been more tentative on the ball, less willing to dazzle in possession if he knew he had bull’s-eyes on his legs. But in more recent seasons, Hazard takes the high road for devastating retribution.
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Eden Hazard has been Chelsea’s most-fouled player every season since he arrived. In the three seasons before Hazard joined, no Chelsea player was fouled on average more than twice per game. Hazard has never absobed fewer than 2.3 fouls per game at a Blue.
Chelsea’s opponents fouled Hazard 2.8 times per game last season. Hazard scored 16 Premier League goals, his best season at Chelsea. In his two Premier League seasons with 14 goals he was fouled 3.0 (2014/15) and 2.5 (2013/14) times per games. He won Premier League titles in two of those seasons, and led the Blues in scoring the other.
In his final season at Lille, where he entered Chelsea’s and the world’s consciousness as a potential star, he was fouled 3.8 times per game and scored 20 goals: career-highs in each. So much for the physicality of the Premier League. And so much for the effectiveness of hack-a-Hazard.
These tallies are obviously only those stomps, drags, kicks and studs-up-into-the-shins that the referee whistles as fouls. Any Chelsea fan and many neutrals will acknowledge that many more go uncalled each game.
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Chelsea’s opponents have the Herculean task of stopping Eden Hazard. In a sad way, their hack-a-Hazard attempts are understandable if risible. However, if they are going to play dirty and risk injuring a player just to stop him, they should at least have some results to show for it.
As it stands now, Eden Hazard embarasses them twice. First he makes them look like pathetic underskilled cheats who must resort to hacking because they cannot even attempt anything better. Then he reveals them as not even being good at cheating when he continues to dribble, dance, flick and score as if they were not even there.
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No one at Stamford Bridge wants Eden Hazard injured. There is a collective gasp whenever he stays down on the ground and slowly rises to his feet. But at the same time, if Chelsea’s opponents want to keep on hacking on, by all means. The Blues enjoy seeing the fruits of their mindless labour on the latest highlight clip.