Premier League 2018/2019 : 6 early contenders for the PFA Player of the Year

#3 Eden Hazard

Eden Hazard in action for Chelsea

2018 has been a rollercoaster one for Eden Hazard. He headed into the World Cup in indifferent form, but put that behind him to captain his country to her best ever World Cup finish, putting in some scintillating performances particularly in the quarterfinal ouster of Brazil and his displays were enough to win him the World Cup Silver Ball as well as a place in the FIFPro XI for the first time.

The 28-year-old returned to Chelsea and continued with his impressive form, having the best goalscoring start to a season in his Chelsea career as he thrived under the expressive football played by Maurizio Sarri.

He topped the scorers chart early on with seven goals from ten matches and was the forerunner to be named the PFA Player of the Year for the second time in his career.

However a back injury derailed his progress and the Belgian went 12 matches without scoring for club and country (although he was still creating assists and chances).

Hazard has been deployed in a false nine role of recent as Sarri attempts to implemet his Napoli pattern where Dries Mertens flourished despite not being a traditional center-forward and like his compaatriot, Hazard is excelling and broke his long goal drought with a goal against Brighton at the weekend in addition to creating an assist (first player in Europe's big five leagues to reach nine assists, although Messi beat him to ten)..

In the victory over Manchester City, Eden Hazard was at his imperious best and was the man responsible for creating the two goals scored to down the Cityzens.

So far this season, Hazard has starred with eight goals and nine assists (which means that he has had more goal involvements than the entirety of last season) and would undoubtedly be one of the forerunners to be named PFA Player of the Year come May next year.