Eden Hazard sparkles but Chelsea fail to find finishing to match

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/sep/17/chelsea-schalke-champions-league-

Version 0 of 1.

This was, in the end, a tale of two No10s. For an hour of this oddly lopsided opening Group G Champions League match Chelsea, and in particular Eden Hazard, looked to have the beating of Jens Keller’s depleted Schalke 04, if not quite the knockout punch. At which point an energetic and inventive Schalke team were able to wrest back control of the match, with Julian Draxler, a spindly, pirouetting whippet of a central creator leading the charge to earn a deserved 1-1 draw.

If José Mourinho will be concerned by the way his midfield was progressively pushed back in the second half, he will surely also take some heart from the positives, notably the brilliance of Hazard’s performance in the opening half hour, which could have swung this match Chelsea’s way – and no doubt would had Diego Costa been asked to start.

Earlier this week Hazard was offered an eye-watering new £200-000-a-week contract. It felt like a timely personal landmark as Chelsea returned to this competition, just as their last champions League match, the defeat by Atlético Madrid here in April, marked a notable low in Hazard’s Stamford Bridge career. That night he was very obviously at fault in Atlético’s tie-turning equaliser, failing to track Juanfran’s run in the build up and finding himself covertly criticised by his manager. With some talk of a summer move to Paris St Germain Hazard’s car was stopped for a full quarter of an hour on the King’s Road after Chelsea’s last Premier League home match by a mob of fans leaning in through the window imploring him to stay.

Happily it was only a tremor. Instead Mourinho has rebuilt his Chelsea 2.0 team around his most gifted playmaker. And with good reason too. For all the necessary additions through the spine, Hazard remains Chelsea’s lone attacking galactico, the one really stellar talent and the centre around which others have been grafted on. Hazard had complained about being asked to “do it all” after the Atlético match – create, score, cover, dribble – and it seems to a degree Mourinho has been listening as the tweaks to this team have all tended to reflect favourably in his direction. On a boisterous, humid night at Stamford Bridge Chelsea’s front six here also featured Didier Drogba, Willian, Cesc Fàbregas, Ramires and Nemanja Matic, a promising confection of muscle and mobility within which Hazard was able to roam with devastating effect in the opening exchanges.

First he sprinted in behind Marco Hoger by the left touchline; then he shuttled out to the right and almost twisted Christian Fuchs into the ground. Then on 10 minutes he made the opening goal. Picking the ball up after Fàbregas’ late lunge on Max Meyer, Hazard skipped away from Sidney Sam, jinked past Hoger and placed the ball in Fàbregas’ path in front of goal with a nonchalant little nudge. Fàbregas lifted the ball over Ralf Fährmann. His drive (and venom) had made the goal: Hazard provided the surgeon’s touch.

After which Chelsea’s No10 continued to hug his touchline, drawing a series of lunges and fresh air tackles from that makeshift Schalke left flank. Hoger in particular looked terribly unhappy at times in the first half, a part-time right-back presented here with Chelsea’s own relentlessly feather-footed cutting edge pinned malevolently to his flank; culminating in a moment on 25 minutes that future Stamford Bridge historians might refer to as Hoger’s nadir as Hazard skipped past his marker with an outrageous body swerve that left him not just heading the wrong way but hailing a taxi back to Stamford Bridge from somewhere near Sloane square.

And yet, it did not last. This depleted Schalke may have looked a hospitable test of Chelsea’s capacity to attack rather than defend their way through this competition. But after that Hazard-infused fast start Chelsea were pushed back by the athletic, energetic trio of Kevin-Prince Boateng, Denis Aogo and the ferreting little prodigy Max Meyer. At times Ramires, Fàbregas, Willian and Hazard were all ahead of the ball as Schalke broke. Indeed it was from Hazard’s misplaced pass that Schalke were able to spring forward on the stroke of half-time, Draxler shooting just wide when he ought to have equalised.

For half an hour Chelsea’s most gifted attacker had looked irrepressibly A-list. After which, the slight relax of air, the occasional dip in intensity that Mourinho is so keen to erase. And for hard-headed reasons too: Hazard, for all the changes around him, remains Chelsea’s ace, a muscular flower of an attacking talent whose levels of sustained impact will be key to Mourinho’s ambitions in this competition. Chelsea were let down here by Drogba’s clumsy finishing and a slight but tangible fading in central midfield after that sublime start. They will, though, take heart from Hazard.