

Eden Hazard was undoubtedly the standout player for the team last season. Anybody can see that Eden Hazard is a special player, but what makes him so good? I'll try to breakdown some of his strengths, highlight what he does so well and how he does it. First let's list his goals this season, click for a gif which should open in a new window. *** Warning this is gonna be a long one. I wanted to put all of the gifs for analysis on to this actual page but I didn't want it to take too long to load, **

Goals scored

Leicester

Arsenal

O.G assist vs. Everton

O.G assist vs. Maribor

Maribor (1)

Maribor (2)

QPR

West Brom

Tottenham

Hull

Derby

Southampton

Tottenham

Liverpool

A.Villa

West Ham

PSG

Hull

Stoke

Man Utd

Palace



While not many of the goals are that impressive I personally have him down for 17 assists, and any person watching any Chelsea match can see the effect that Eden Hazard has on a match regardless of stats.

Analysis

Eden Hazard is a special player with a rare mix of talents which make him so effective. Great technique, ball control, awareness, a fantastic footballing brain and physical attributes such as acceleration, balance and strength.

Physical Strengths

First lets start with Eden Hazard's physical qualities. He is short and stocky and this low centre of gravity allows him to turn on a dime, coupled with his acceleration and pace allows him to skip past defenders which is part of what makes him such a good dribbler. Just look at this Gif.

Hazard plants his foot turns quickly and is away (which leads to an assist for a Diego Costa goal) whereas the Hull City defender has the turning circle of a bendy bus in comparison. This agility can be seen in every game in which Hazard plays but for another good example see his goal against Tottenham

Once again he is so much quicker to turn with the ball than his defender giving him space to operate, firing off a one two with Drogba before finishing low.

All of this culminates in runs like this one against Arsenal using his ball control and ability to change direction to attack. This is the most common way in which you will see Eden Hazard going past players.

Eden's Fake Out

Eden Hazard doesn't do many stepovers or many "insane" skills while he is on the football pitch, he likes to keep it simple and use his dribbling abilities to beat players, however he does have a few techniques which he likes to use to keep a defender on their toes. One that he uses incredibly well is the fake shot or pass. This is a gif of an American football player returning a punt.

It's Antonio Brown - one of the best in the business. In American football you can't use the ball to wrong foot defenders you only have your body. This makes the "juke" in which you fake to go one way and actually go the other one of the most common ways to beat a man. Here Brown takes one BIG exaggerated step on his right before cutting back to his left taking the man out of the equation. The key thing to note is how he doesn't actually start curving his run to his right he just makes a big show of making it look like he is starting to go in that direction.

Eden Hazard is one of the better players in football right now at using the same premise to beat players, using a fake shot or pass to get past. Here are a just a few gifs of him beating defenders by faking them out which lead to a goal this season.

- 1 2 3 4 -

Notice how he doesn't ever start to move his foot towards the ball when he is faking a shot, he opens his body, moves back his arms and draws his leg back - and then resumes. What a lot of players will do when faking a shot is overselling it, they will pretend to kick the ball not by overexaggerating the stance necessary to hit the ball - but by actually bringing their foot towards the ball and stopping before they hit it. This slows the attacker down and gives the defender time to recover, whereas Hazards method is smooth, fluid and does enough to fool the defender.

Just like Brown doesn't actually start running to the right he simply makes it look like he is going to the right, Hazard doesn't actually start taking the shot he just makes it look like he is about to start taking a shot - It might seem like a small nitpicky detail but it really does make a world of difference.

The Footballing Brain.

Eden Hazard has a brilliant football brain without a doubt, he can see how things are going to develop, what others are thinking and how to take advantage of it. He has very good quick lateral thinking.

I'm gonna start in a similar vein to our last part of this write up - another fake. However not every fake is as simple as, take a fake shot and run past the other player. In this one Hazard is aware of the defenders thoughts, what he is concerned about and how he can use this to his advantage.

Here Hazard is on his own on the left wing, anybody who has played at full back knows that Glen Johnson should be looking to get back goal side of Hazard. However for some reason Glen Johnson ends up crossing behind Eden Hazard. Why does that happen? Well Hazard uses his tendency to cut inside and the oppositions fear of this to send Johnson past him. Notice the way which he slows down slightly and has a look over his shoulder, he sells it well which causes Johnson to gamble unsuccessfully giving Hazard space to continue. This works so well because Hazard knows that teams are scared of him cutting inside like this

- 1 2 3 4 5 -

and causing damage, against most other players Johnson would have covered in an orthodox method simply getting goalside and dealing with it from there but Hazard realises that defenders are willing to gamble to nuetralise him and punishes them for that.

Another great example is this own goal against Everton. Everton has two players watching Hazard here, one should attempt to stop a run down the line and one defend the cut back. However Hazard causes them both to square up and cover the run across the box before darting outside them to set up the goal. He knows that he can manipulate defenses and he takes advantage of it. Once again against most other players Everton would have defended this correctly, but rather perversely the simple fact that Eden Hazard is so strong at cutting inside players makes his ability to go down the line much more potent as teams will often neglect it when he shapes to go inside.



But the best showing of Eden Hazard's footballing brain this season in my opinion was undoubtedly this goal for John Terry against Maribor.

This goal is perfect play by Eden Hazard. He picks the ball up deep, instead of running full pelt at the defender he dribbles forward at a more leisurely pace, thus letting his support catch up with him while keeping the defender on the back foot. Then we have the quick point to show where he wants Fabregas to run to, at this point the play has developed in his head - he knows what he wants to do. After the point he slows things down further drawing in 4 or 5 defenders who are looking at Hazard, this opens up both Fabregas' run on his right shoulder and the center of the box for the onrushing Terry. Finally it's a perfectly weighted lay off to Cesc which allows him to square it first time for Terry to put home. Eden Hazard's vision, awareness etc. is all on display in this goal and he doesn't even get an assist for it - which shows why it is ridiculous to judge players on stats alone.

Cesc and Eden - The overlooked partnership.

While the partnership between Fabregas and Costa has been widely acknowledged one which I think gets overlooked is between Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas. Hazard seems to be the one player who Fabregas really trusts, he will often make a type of run when Hazard has the ball that he doesn't make otherwise going past the ball taking men with him.

This is just one example of many. The aforementioned Terry goal against Maribor is another good example and here are plenty more of Cesc and Hazard linking up - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 -

Fabregas is much more comfortable playing deeper, facing the goal and redistributing the ball, however he and Hazard seem to click so well and when Hazard is on the ball he is willing to make those more unnatural runs which either open up space for Hazard or give him an opportunity to do something himself.

Defensively

Obviously the weakest part of Eden Hazard's game is his play defensively. Many have been saying that Hazard has improved defensively over the past year - and while this is technically true I think it's important to note that most of this improvement is not in his tackling etc. but rather his positional discipline.

Hazard doesn't have to do a lot of actual defensive work in this Chelsea team. When the ball comes out to his wing the team tends to shift in a way that means Azpilicueta can press. What is important however is that Hazard is seen to be in defence. This may seem like a strange statement but just look at this goal by Shelvey.

Here Hazard is caught upfield (Yes its 4-1 so we won't be too harsh on him but it shows what can happen) this leaves Apilicueta to split two players which leads to Shelvey being able to go up the middle. Now if Hazard was back tracking his man then it is likely that he wouldn't have actually had to do anything, and if it did go to his man then the defence would make a shift allowing Azpilicueta to get out to the man. BUT by not being there it ruins the whole defensive shape that Chelsea have. (And yes technically Oscar should have filled in but once again 4-1)

Don't fool yourself, Eden Hazard is not a good tackler and is definitely not good at challenging in the air but he is strangely important to the defence due to the fact that he discourages the full-back on his side from pressing forward because of his threat on the counter. This allows Azpilicueta to play 1v1 often which he will come out on top of 95% of the time. Coupled with the presence of Terry and Matic it makes the left side of Chelsea's defence so hard to break down compared to the right despite Willian being a much better defender than Hazard.

Notes

A couple of interesting notes to finish then