Maybe a short spell in the physio room for Eden Hazard is just what Chelsea FC need right now.
Eden Hazard obviously wants to play in every game he can and in his current exquisite form that’s no great surprise. For Chelsea fans and Maurizio Sarri, Hazard is unquestionably the first name on the team sheet. Since returning from the World Cup with Belgium, Hazard’s club form has been nothing short of sensational. The facts bare that out. It’s well known how incongruent stats can be, though. They can be twisted to make any side of an argument work any which way. Nobody needs stats to tell them Hazard is the best player in the Premier League at this moment.
That said, it is worth noting Hazard has featured in 11 games so far this season and has scored or assisted 11 goals. Without the Belgian’s goal / assist tally Chelsea would be seven points worse off in the Premier League and alongside Manchester United in the table. Of course, had Hazard not played Chelsea may still have found a way to gain those points. That, we’ll never know.
Where Sarri and Chelsea may benefit in the long run from a short spell without the Belgian wizard is in allowing the rest of the attacking midfielders and strikers a shot at taking on some goal-scoring responsibility. So prolific has Hazard been that Olivier Giroud’s and Alvaro Morata’s lack of goals has been much easier to tolerate. They are both more than capable, and now they need to come to the party.
Chelsea’s striking duo have been given the chance to get their season’s up and running in the Europa League. Both have pretty much failed in that plan. Europe’s second-tier competition is not the Premier League, though. The players’ motivation doesn’t compare. To have a chance of glory over a full season in May, every game is important. The Europa League’s seeded group structure ridiculously favours the big teams. It doesn’t have the same jeopardy as the domestic season – there’s always the next game if things go wrong.
Sarri’s possession-based, fast-moving formulaic brand of football (I refuse to use Sarriball or Sarrismo) drops the ball at Hazard’s feet like Thibaut Courtois’ mouth drops the faecal matter. The ultimate or penultimate ball almost invariably come through him. It’s very easy to become reliant on someone so entrenched in the system, and Chelsea’s players have become too reliant on Hazard for the whole team’s good.
Chances are, even if Hazard is 95% fit he’ll be 100% in the starting XI. That’s the kind of guy he is. However, should Hazard fail to make the pitch against Burnley, those that start have to impact the game as they did against the Belarusians. The player most likely to benefit from an absent Hazard will likely be Ross Barkley who, through hard work and determination, is becoming an integral part of Sarri’s system.
Many laughed when Marina Granovskaia and Roman Abramovich splashed out £15 million for the injury-prone kid from Everton last January. This season he’s paying them back with interest. With his former side due at Stamford Bridge in two weeks he’ll be chomping at the bit for their visit and, in the meantime, looking to carry on his upward trajectory.
The 2018/19 season is still in its infancy. Sarri will need Giroud and Morata to add to their combined total of two league goals (both Morata) if Chelsea really are to challenge for the title. Should they not succeed, the Italian boss and his Russian-Israeli superiors will have to buy big in January or think outside of the technical area.
Against BATE both Sarri and Gianfranco Zola appeared to be encouraging Ruben Loftus-Cheek into a more advanced role. Having observed Sarri’s reluctance to integrate the youth, although Loftus-Cheek is way beyond that, it would be optimistic to expect him to be that man in the league despite the clamour for it amongst the fans. Sarri has all but ruled out the possibility of Hazard reprising the false-nine role bestowed upon him by Antonio Conte.
Whether the Belgian plays or sits out the game against Burnley, Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s exploits against the team from Belarus could, via Ross Barkley, provide Sarri with another option up front.