Oh Eden, you tease! After all the Twitter flirting, Eden Hazard finally showed up in London days after apparently consummating his £32 million relationship with Chelsea.
The Manchester clubs, City and United, were left bereft when Lille’s superstar decided to play away for Chelsea. Arsenal wept a lonely tear, too. And the rest of us? In the style of a classic online romance, we had seen the photos and watched wide-eyed at some brief clips that suggested Hazard does indeed have that special something. We dreamt about the day we could see him in the flesh. Could this 21-year-old ever live up to the advance publicity or was first-date disappointment inevitable?
From the start, Hazard took up a position at the point of Belgium’s attack. The No 10 he wore on his back suggested he would sit behind the strikers and create from deep but this was not in Marc Wilmots’s strategy. The Belgium coach set up his team with an organised and straightforward back four and protected it with Alex Witsel. The other five outfield players mixed and matched as the situation demanded.
Operating mainly in a three with Dries Mertins and Marouane Fellaini – Mousa Dembele and Kevin Mirallas ranged forward to support when needed - Hazard worked the width of the pitch without significant impact. His efforts were busy rather than brilliant.
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For Lille, he has played deeper and shown a tendency to cut inside and commit men but few England defenders were forced into a challenge. Fernando Torres will have shivered in horror when he saw Hazard at the spearhead of Belgium’s attack but he can relax: this is not an out-and-out striker. If the Belgians had a natural goalscorer to call on, surely Hazard would have been deployed in a more effective role.
Much of his better work came down the inside-left channel, in the areas favoured by both Torres and Frank Lampard. A switch to the right brought about the tantalising prospect of a duel with Ashley Cole. They went head-to-head once and Cole said hello to his future team-mate with an unceremonious shove in the back. They rarely came into contact again.
With Romelu Lukaku’s arrival, Hazard dropped into the inside-right channel. The big forward’s abilities are like a parody of Didier Drogba’s. His touch is uncertain and his physicality clumsy rather than threatening. Yet the switch to a more traditional front man gave Hazard the chance to roam deeper and run at defenders. There were no earth-shaking bursts of speed or killer twists and turns but at last Hazard was asking questions of the defence and fashioning shooting positions.
For a young man with such a pricetag, Hazard looked far from a finished product. His movement lacked purpose at times and his runs sometimes seemed bereft of intelligence – after linking the play nicely and shifting the ball wide, he followed Mirallas into the same area. On the plus side, his delivery from free kicks and corners was good. He will present a threat at set-pieces.
Hazard looks a player who will thrive in a more structured formation and in a defined role, although his new manager at Chelsea will need to be sympathetic to the occasional tendency to roam. His best period came right at the end of the match, when he hugged the left touchline and showed his eye for the cute pass.
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Playing behind Fernando Torres in a more structured system, Hazard has the ability to create and cause confusion. Though few of them came off, he showed an eye for the clever pass and the Spain forward makes the sort of runs that cry out for intelligent balls.
Hazard wore No 10 on Saturday and he will work the width of the pitch between the halfway line and the penalty area. However, to get the best out of Torres and Hulk, the next Chelsea manager may shift Hazard out wide. Along with Juan Mata, the Belgian could form a potentially devastating supply line to Torres.
It was a low-key start to his post-Lille career, but there is plenty to come from Hazard. Expectations were too high to be satisfied here at Wembley but there were enough signs to believe that Chelsea will be glad they won the beauty contest to sign him. It was not love at first sight, but things could well blossom into a long-term romance at Stamford Bridge.