Eden Hazard is talking about Real Madrid again.
Chelsea’s wing wonder has started the season in blisteringly good form, settling into Maurizio Sarri’s new system of play at Stamford Bridge quicker than anybody expected. He has 8 goals already, almost half of his best ever total as a Chelsea player, and he’s only played 10 times.
You’d think Chelsea fans would be whooping for joy as Hazard’s return to the prominence he showed in their title-winning campaigns of 2014/15 and 2016/17, wouldn’t you? Well, whilst there is surely plenty of joy, Hazard himself is doing all he can to ruin everyone’s fun.
How is he doing this? By talking about moving to Real Madrid. Again.
Hazard has been linked with Madrid forever, and has often talked about moving to the Spanish capital positive. This summer it looked like it was going to happen; Chelsea weren’t in the Champions League and had a new manager coming in, Hazard’s ambitions were becoming greater and Los Blancos themselves needed a new superstar in the wake of summer departures.
Yet nothing happened. Hazard stayed in Chelsea. Any possibility of him downing tools (as he pretty obviously did in 2015/16 and 2017/18) flew right out of the window. He seemed so enthused with Maurizio Sarri’s style of play.
But people never change, and Hazard’s latest round of interviews during the international break have started the whole transfer saga back up again despite it being, you know, the middle of October. “It is my dream since I was a kid. I was dreaming about this club,” Hazard said of a move to Madrid, adding; “it is also when you have a dream and you want to make it happen.”
Hazard has even ruled out a move in January, yet here he is. Openly discussing a summer 2019 transfer in October 2018. The whole situation is absurd, insulting to Chelsea and also quite a decent sign that the move will happen. After all, Hazard has said: “Chelsea have given me a lot. I left Lille on good terms and I want to do the same thing here.”
But would this dream move be the right one for Eden Hazard to make? Sure, it’s his dream, but does it make sense? Well, to be brutally honest, no. It doesn’t. Real Madrid do need a new superstar, a new face of the club after Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure to Juventus.
Madrid have struggled to project themselves as the dominant force that they did when they had Cristiano (although given what is now coming to light regarding the Portuguese, they’re probably grateful to be shot of him) and whilst signing Hazard would unquestionably fix that problem given the Belgian’s standing in the world game, PR is the least of Madrid’s problems.
Their main issue is that they struggle to score goals. Their margin for error in terms of goalscoring is now miniscule; before they had Cristiano, who would take several shots every game and eventually over the course of a season score between 40 and 50 goals. That is a colossal goal return and their entire team had become set-up to provide him with those chances.
Now he’s not there, the forwards in particular are struggling to readjust in order to carry the goalscoring load themselves. Los Blancos entered the international break having failed to score in their previous four games, a shocking run of poor form. And one that exposes Madrid’s biggest problem: they need a goalscorer.
Now, many will be thinking “hey, Hazard has 8 goals in 10 games! That’s a lot of goals! Isn’t this exactly what Madrid need?!?” and whilst that conclusion makes logical sense just looking at the immediate numbers, it’s based on a very small sample size.
Remember Eden Hazard has never scored more than 19 goals in a single season for Chelsea, across all competitions. 19. For reference, the last time Cristiano Ronaldo failed to score more than 19 goals was in 2005/06 when he was 21 years old. Eden Hazard is 27.
It’s likely that Hazard will score more than 19 goals this season, but will it be significantly more? And could he repeat the trick in a side that wasn’t powered by Maurizio Sarri’s passing football overwhelming opponents?
Hazard is primarily a creative player who plays from the left and can score and create in equal measure. The thing is, Madrid already have someone who does that pretty well; his name is Isco. Would Hazard be better than Isco in that role? It’s possible. He is a year older.
Of course Hazard’s arrival would create even more of a logjam out wide, where Marco Asensio is breaking into the first-team by competing with Gareth Bale and Isco for minutes. But if he has to compete with Bale, Isco and Hazard he’s going to have a rough time of it.
More to the point, is Hazard even what Real Madrid need? Well, Los Blancos need a goalscoring striker to take their place at the head of the team and convert the chances that Isco, Bale, Asensio and that incredible midfield make. And whilst he is a great many things, Eden Hazard is not a goalscoring striker. He is emphatically not what Real Madrid need.
Now, if they sign him he will probably do alright individually. Michael Owen did just that in 2004/05 when he joined Los Blancos. As a former Ballon d’Or winner (don’t ask) he was touted as the big hero that would help them get back to winning ways after a trophyless season. But a striker was not what that Madrid side needed, and so Owen simply did his thing at the head of an old and decaying Madrid side, then left after one season.
Hazard now is better than Owen was in 2004, so he would probably fare better than the striker did. But the situation is basically the same; he would be joining an illustrious but old squad, being touted as the saviour despite not being what the team needs to truly overhaul itself. He certainly wouldn’t dominate to the degree needed to win the Ballon d’Or, which seems to be a big motivator for the Belgian.
Dreams are often illogical nonsense that only exist inside our heads. A lot of dreams break apart upon even cursory examination, as Eden Hazard’s Real Madrid dream does. The club simply does not have a footballing need for a flying winger at this point.
A goalscoring striker has to be Real Madrid’s priority, all Hazard would be is a faster more internationally renowned version of Isco. A player whose vast individual genius will never make him the man Madrid need, and whose petulance and lackadaisical attitude could easily earn the ire of a demanding Santiago Bernabeu crowd, turning his dream into a nightmare.
The post Next Michael Owen? Eden Hazard’s “dream” has the makings of a nightmare right now appeared first on Squawka News.
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