Hazard was one of the Chelsea players affected by the cancelled worldwide game between Belgium and Spain because of the terrorist threat in his home country, with Brussels put on high alert over the weekend.
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“It’s a bit of a relief”, said Mourinho after a win that ended a three-match losing streak in the league.
“We were good in the movement and fluid and Hazard created chances for us and I think today was good for his confidence because he is a player that was not performing especially well”.
The 1-0 victory lifted Jose Mourinho’s side up to 15th in the table, but does this represent a turning point in the Blues’ season?
The Belgian also denied reports that he was keen on a move to Real Madrid, because he has fallen out with Mourinho.
Mourinho’s men have endured a disastrous start to the season and slumped to their seventh loss of the campaign at Stoke City before the worldwide break to leave their title defence in tatters.
“Sometimes you don’t know”. I’m not nervous on the bench but I was a little bit disappointed with the way things went. I don’t know if I have to play every game there. I hope I can get a lot more form and try to help the team win games.
“I tried to play my own game”. Important for us, the result and the goal, but I think also for him.
In the end it was Costa’s cool finish that made the difference – along with a smart save from Asmir Begovic, who prevented an equaliser by diving to his right to keep out Brady’s shot.
They have just one win in their last six Premier League matches, against bottom side Aston Villa on 17 October, and only two other clubs have a worse defensive record so far this season.
John Terry is optimistic about Chelsea’s chances of getting a good result against Maccabi Tel Aviv following Eden Hazard’s return to form.
Chelsea have 33 players now out on loan, and Cascarino has accused Mourinho of ignoring and neglecting that pool of talent while his more established stars struggle.
Hazard was deployed as the central playmaker, rather than his more usual left-wing role, and thrived against the Canaries.
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“But you’ve got to remember the boys have got 70 minutes of hard work in their legs and what you don’t want to do is try to be too expansive and turn a good, solid, steady performance for a 1-0 into maybe three or four”.
