Eden Hazard transfer: Chelsea’s great gamechanger really was something special
The brilliant Belgian leaves as one of the Blues’ greatest ever players and one of the best to ever grace the Premier League
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Your support makes all the difference.It was the perfect way to sum up a player who was almost impossible to keep down. And, fittingly for such a glorious individualist, it inadvertently came from the man himself.
After what turned out to be Eden Hazard’s last Premier League goal for Chelsea, which also happened to be one of his best goals for Chelsea, against West Ham United in March, the 28-year-old was asked to talk the TV audience through it.
“Something special,” he smiled. “Just something special.”
That’s pretty much the perfect way to describe his Chelsea career, too.
As well as one of the club’s greatest ever players, Hazard was one of the Premier League’s most distinctive, who so regularly illuminated the competition with an elusive style of dribbling that is so rare - and thereby all the more electrifying - in the modern game.
It was the source of most of his best goals, and most of his finest moments. The fact that he would produce such game-changing contributions through the most wonderful skill - like, most notably, that supreme goal against Arsenal in 2016-17 - was an endearing reflection of all that is actually great about football.
There was a purity to Hazard’s game.
It says an awful lot that one of the only players in Europe to better - or even come close to - his dribbling stats over those sensational seven years was Lionel Messi, which is why the Belgian is now talked of in similar terms.
He will now be the Barcelona star's direct competitor, across the Clasico with Real Madrid, as he seeks to make that final step up.
It was precisely because of such overwhelming talent that one of the undercurrents of Hazard’s time in England was his own managers - and other football figures - regularly lamenting that he needed to be more decisive; be more consistent; be more of “a killer”, in the words of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.
And yet the very fact so managers repeated this is an argument in the Belgian’s favour.
He had to play under as many as six managers in seven seasons, with at least half of them setting out tactically straitened teams that emphasised discipline rather than creativity.
And yet Hazard performed to brilliant levels through almost all of them. The only exception was Guus Hiddink, but that 2015-16 campaign - where he only scored four goals - was so bizarre and so distorted, that it can be pretty fairly dismissed when it comes to sizing up his legacy.
Much more relevant, and impressive, was that he immediately responded with what was probably his best season for Chelsea in 2016-17.
It is similarly evidence of much more mental resilience than he is often credited with, and of another element to his career that further elevates him.
Hazard was the key, and most influentially decisive, player in two different title-winning teams.
There are very few in the Premier League era who can say that, even among great champions with many more medals
Arguably only Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Roy Keane can make similar claims.
And they all played in superior overall sides relative to the rest of the Premier League at the time, only emphasising Hazard’s importance.
It could even be seen this season. In a fairly prosaic Chelsea team, he was still utterly sparkling.
He still offered so many of his great moments.
The sight of him so smoothly bewitching defenders is what will remain, but maybe isn’t the image that sums him up.
That is perhaps that famous picture of his socks ripped to bits, from so many desperate tackles.
It is the ultimate testament to how he ripped defences to pieces, but in the most elegant and creative manner.
He will now make the step-up so many demanded, and that he wanted. Hazard will get to play in a team that will encourage his attacking, that will suit his creative instincts.
He’s never had that before.
The Premier League may never again have a player quite like him. He was something special.
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