17. Eden Hazard

Appreciate the article but it's clearly influenced by the press. Media darling De Bruyne had another average game that's why they come up with this story about other players running in the way. Truth is De Bruyne had as much touches on the ball as Hazard against Wales and more than he averages for Wolfsburg. Just like Hazard and Chadli he had the freedom to roam as well, it was a fluent system and it's not like he hasn't played on the wing for the NT before anyway. I never heard anyone making excuses like this for Hazard when he had an average game. I disagree with your assessment about playmakers. Like Belgiannutt said Belgium needs an extra playmaker rather than one less. De Bruyne is not a true playmaker anyway, and he's not the next coming of Cruijff or Zidane like a lot of Belgians seem to think. No playmaker anywhere near worldclass has a passing completion of only 75%. You confuse assists with dictating play and orchestrating the attacks.

The cross against Fulham was a few yards farther out but pretty much the same angle: Anyway pointless discussion.

Hazard has been doing rabonas all his life, it's a natural move to him not some kind of experiment. It was never going to be an easy cross and he felt more comfortable doing a rabona rather than using his weak foot but an erratic ball movement ruined it, I really don't see what the fuss is about. There were plenty more of garbage crosses that game, the majority of them a lot easier than this one but people don't talk about those because they didn't involve a move they aren't familiar with.

It failed because the ball bounced slightly up right before he hit it. If he pulled it off like he did against Fulham, QPR, PSG etc. everyone would be raving about it.

Earlier this year:

Great goal but his general play was actually below par this game.

Yes stats often don't mean much but there's little to no ambiguity about the ones I posted. Dispossessed in this context means "Being tackled by an opponent without attempting to dribble past them" (Whoscored). He lost the ball a few times when trying to dribble past defenders as well but not an abnormal amount of times. Point is he wasn't wasteful by any means yesterday.

95 % passes completed (team highest), no turnovers, dispossessed only once. Pay attention or don't comment pls. Yes maybe, just maybe he comes really close in dribbling since he actually got twice the amount of succesful dribbles than the second best player so far this season in the EPL while simultaneously keeping the amount of unsuccesful dribbles low (67% succesful). Also had the highest amount of key passes from open play last season so I think he's pretty good at "assisting". And please define "total skills" lol.

"Chances created" or "key passes" and all that just counts every last pass before an effort at goal. Can be a slick through ball but also corners and free kicks or a 5 yard sideways pass to a teammate who hits the corner flag from 40 yards out. Just like all other stats in football it's useless when looked at in isolation.

Hazard's only intention was to get on with the game and try and get Chelsea into the final. Ball "boy" was winning time all game long so he went to get the ball himself and when ball boy decided to go and lay on the ball he toe poked-it from underneath him like you can clearly see in the gif below: That's all there is to it. The fact some "supporters" on here slate him because of this just to take the moral high ground which the media uses to fill their papers disgust me. Hazard = LEGEND