Hot on the heels of a productive pre-season, and a European Championships in which he led the way in terms of assists, Eden Hazard is excited at the prospect of the new-look Blues taking to the field for the first time in a competitive fixture under the management of Antonio Conte.
Hazard scored three goals in his 127 minutes of pre-season football, including two against Real Madrid, and he created another for Diego Costa in Germany last Sunday. Allied to that match action were plenty of training sessions designed to build up fitness and tactical organisation.
‘You know when pre-season has gone good because you’ve worked hard in training and after the first few games sometimes you are a little bit tired,’ Hazard explained.
‘But we played a good game against Milan in the last game of our tour of the USA, then we played a good game against Bremen last weekend, in Germany. Earlier, we won against Liverpool, and we lost against Real Madrid, but I think we were a little bit tired for that game because we hadn’t been in pre-season long.
‘It’s a new season, a fresh start, a new manager and a couple of new players,’ continued the Belgian.
‘We have all been working together for a few weeks now and the new manager has a new philosophy and he wants to play a different style. That’s always good, and now we will see how it goes.’
It all starts again later today when West Ham, opposition Hazard has fond memories of playing against, travel across London. He scored the winner against them at Upton Park in our victorious 2014/15 league campaign, and struck an even better goal at the Bridge two years earlier in a 2-0 win.
‘I remember that one. I think Juan Mata was there at that time and I played a one-two with him, then put it in the net. That was good.
‘I like to play against West Ham because it’s important for the fans as well, it’s always like this when we play against another London team. We will see how the first game of the season goes, but I hope we can be much better than last season.’
- Chelsea TV are on air from 7pm tonight with their Pre-Match at the Bridge show bringing you all the team news and analysis ahead of the big kick-off.
