Chelsea's Eden Hazard could decide the EPL title race in the 10 remaining games

Chelsea’s Eden Hazard

Yeah, you read that right! 23-year-old Eden Hazard might decide where the EPL trophy could end up come May. Manchester City or Liverpool fans might not agree but the second half performance from Chelsea against Fulham justifies the fact. If you watch the highlights, you will say Andre Schurrle was man of the match and he deserves the accolade. But if you watch the full match, you can observe that the Belgian was the key for Chelsea’s 3-1 win.

Without Hazard, they might have settled for a draw based on their lethargic display in first half. In the second half, he assisted two goals for Schurrle and then floated in a sublime ‘rabona’ cross. In the first half, he was below par and so were the Blues, but he upped his game in second half and as a result Chelsea won comfortably. The conclusion is if ‘Eden Hazard plays well then Chelsea plays well’. Now, the point is why does the title race depend upon him?

For that, you have to observe the performances of Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal. None of the top teams seem to be quite as reliant on one player as Chelsea are with Hazard. Someone will say Suarez, Aguero or Ramsey, some other will say Sturridge, Yaya Toure or Cazorla. The point is that Chelsea don’t have that second player who can lift them up when their star player is injured or not at his best. The fact that Jose Mourinho has started Hazard in all but one match shows how highly the Portuguese rates him. His 12 goals, 7 assists and 70 key passes shows that the Blues’ title challenge depends upon the performances of the Belgian.

If we take a closer look at the table, we see Chelsea have 63 points from 28 matches and Man City will also be level on points with the Blues if they win their two games in hand. They are followed by Liverpool and Arsenal on 59 points each. There are several high profile matches still left to be played involving those four teams. Here are the tight fixtures for these teams:

Man City: Arsenal (A), Manchester United (A), Everton (A) and Liverpool (A)

Arsenal: Spurs (A), Chelsea (A), Manchester City (H) and Everton (A)

Liverpool: Manchester United (A), Manchester City (H), Spurs (H) and Chelsea (H).

Chelsea: Arsenal (H), Liverpool (A) and Spurs (H).

Based on the above list, we can conclude that Chelsea have light fixtures as compared to other three. They also have the advantage over Man City who face a fixture pile up problem due to their quadruple commitments. So, if I assume Chelsea will take 6 points from those three matches, which is not a bad assumption as they are yet to lose a match against top 5 teams in the table, we can conclude that they will not drop many points in the 10 remaining games.

Apart from those 3 matches, they will play seven matches against Aston Villa, Cardiff City, Crystal Palace, Stoke City, Norwich, Swansea and Sunderland. The result for all of these matches might depend upon the performance of Hazard, as it did against Fulham in the second half. Thus, if he plays at a top level in those matches, then Chelsea will surely win the EPL title.

What more do you need than a 23-year old deciding this fascinating EPL title race all on his own? Can Hazard do it for the blues?

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