After experiencing a bad season last year where he looked entirely out of form due to the culmination of a lot of things at Chelsea, Eden Hazard seems a different kind of player this season. There were doubts if he could play the way he is known for under Conte, but 10 game weeks into the season, the Belgian has destroyed any such notion.
At the start of the season, Conte used a 4-1-4-1, and then momentarily shifted to a 4-2-3-1 for a single game. It was observed that the defence was unable to deal with the phase off the ball in those formations and with David Luiz and Gary Cahill both making some individual errors, things got worse for the team. Conte then changed to a 3-4-3 and reverted back to the use of wingbacks, a ploy which has served him very well throughout his managerial career.
Since shifting to the new formation, Chelsea have won 4 games on the trot with the team scoring 11 goals and conceding none. Eden Hazard has been the real beneficiary of the formation with the Belgian being able to influence the games more and more.
The first thing notable behind the good form of Hazard is the presence of Victor Moses who has worked like a catalyst in the formation. Stationed as the fullback, Moses is the one who relieves Hazard of his defensive duties, something he was never good at. Working up front without having to execute his defensive duties of covering the fullback, the Belgian is now enjoying a better scope of utilising the space up front due to his advanced positions on the break.
While Moses provides the cover defensively, Hazard waits further up field waiting to get the ball from his defence so that he can counter effectively utilising the space and time. The second notable difference which the formation has allowed the attacking midfielder to do is to utilise the pitch more dynamically with his movement not being restricted to one side of the field.
Previously, Hazard worked the channels and while he did cut infield during his trademark runs, there was little scope of staying in the central areas off the ball as it would have distorted the team’s shape. Now in the new formation, the Belgian is able to not only move more towards the centre with the ball at his feet but also stay there and exploit the space opened up by the movement of Diego Costa up front.
The pictures above shows how Hazard’s influence was only reduced to be within the channels in Chelsea’s two losses against Liverpool and Arsenal. The two pictures below show how the player has been able to stay centrally during the games in the new formation providing a greater provision of effective use of his attributes.
With the constant presence of three players up front, there are also fewer chances of the opposition committing more men in the opposition half which acts to reduce the overall threat of conceding a goal as a result.
The presence of Hazard up front has allowed him to pressure the opponent and try and win the ball when they are trying to pass it into the midfield and not running with it, something which he had to do when stationed exclusively on the flanks.
Running backwards with his man thus used up a lot of energy while dragging the player away from his area of influence, Conte has just solved that problem and it has immediately brought a huge shift to the results of the team and in the form of Eden Hazard who looks every bit the world class player he actually is.
Stats via Whoscored
