No pressure, then: the season ahead for Frank Lampard

If you’ve been hearing the noise of a chequebook creaking open and shut from Moscow, Tel Aviv, a Moonraker-style space station, or wherever Roman Abramovich bases himself these days, it’s because the Russian has made a spectacular return to the largesse that transformed Chelsea 17 years ago. The oligarch can be pretty much singularly credited for transforming the club from perennial strugglers, trading off former glories and lurching from existential crisis to existential crisis, into serial trophy winners and default members of the so-called ‘big six’.

Whatever the arguments about "buying success" (yeah, tell that to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG and, for a long period of time, Manchester United...), the outlay that marked Abramovich's first decade or so as Chelsea's owner made a notable disappearance as he appeared to lose interest, apparently the result of Britain having a downer on friends of the Russian regime. An abrupt halt was called to the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge amid suggestions (denied) that an application to renew Abramovich's 'investor visa' had been withdrawn. Even the oligarch himself was rumoured to be sounding out potential suitors for the club, though this proved to be nothing more than rumour. The club's spending profile did, though, appear more muted, to be curbed further by the UEFA ban on signing new players that took effect at the beginning of last season, just as Frank Lampard took over as head coach of the club where he is, rightfully, revered as a playing legend.

Picture: Facebook/Chelsea FC

You could say that Lampard, in only his second management role after just a single season at Derby County, was taking on the notoriously trepidatious Chelsea gig with one hand tied behind his back and both ankles strapped together.

His maiden season meant blooding in a talented pool of youngsters that had, hitherto, been out on a never-ending carousel of loans, along with somewhat ageing figures that, if push came to shove, would have been surplus to requirements. On top of that, he’d be shorn of the club talisman, Eden Hazard, sold to Real Madrid at the end of the season before. Given all this, a fourth place finish, resulting in Champions League qualification, plus an appearance in the FA Cup Final, could be seen as over-achievement.

In fact, at any other club it would be. But this is Chelsea. Even for a season that ended better than anyone gave Lampard credit for (most would have generously said “top ten” and left it at that), the club’s expectations of their young manager were still left unfulfilled, according to some suggestions. Luckily, Lampard spent 13 years at the club as a player, and saw plenty of managers come and go, including the revered Carlo Ancelotti, always believed to be the model coach Abramovich desired when he bought the club.

So, no pressure, then, on Lampard for his own sophomore season. Especially when the club has become the Premier League's most vibrantly active club in the summer transfer market, so far spending anything up to £230 million on exciting European talent. Kai Havertz (21), Timo Werner (24), Hakim Ziyech (27), plus Ben Chilwell (23), the veteran Thiago Silva and, we understand, the imminent arrival of goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, have all been acquired to augment a side that, last season, showed plenty of attack but lacked robustness at the back.

Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chilwell
Picture: Twitter/@ChelseaFC

There is still the possibility, too, that Declan Rice - a Chelsea academy product - might be prised away from West Ham, though not if David Moyes has his say, having slapped a £90 million sprig of garlic around the versatile centre-back’s neck. Given that Chelsea’s net outlay is 'only' £80 million in this window, due to the fact Hazard’s residual fee will eventually reach £150 million, Rice might still prove an irresistible target for Marina Granovskaia’s impressively administered kitty.

The need to strengthen Chelsea’s squad hasn’t simply been to plug the obvious defensive gaps that could, last season, have undermined things more seriously. While 2019-20 was accepted as a fallow year, given the ban and an accommodation around the youth/ageing contingent, a gulf opened up with Liverpool and, to a lesser extent, Manchester City, the latter of whom enjoy a similar lap of benefactor luxury. This time around, Manchester United continue to be a threat - perhaps more than they did last season - and Arsenal under Mikel Arteta are growing in stature, buoyed by titles acquired at both ends of August. And there is still Tottenham, but let's just leave that there for now.

Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp may have recently dismissed Chelsea’s summer spending, but the reopening of the Abramovich coffers has allowed the club to remain supremely competitive in the attacking department. Havertz is one of Europe’s hottest properties - coveted, apparently, by both Liverpool and City - and accordingly didn’t come cheap, especially at a time when most clubs have reigned in spending. Chelsea have appeared to remain in relatively good fiscal health throughout the last few months, apparently not having to make any redundancies or even (from what I hear) furloughs due to the pandemic. Even the season ticket situation remains up in the air for 2020-21 renewals (we’re still in credit for the games closed off to spectators since March). Normally they can't wait to send out the renewal notice in May. All of this doesn’t mean the largesse hasn't come at a price. There are still surplus players for Granovskaia to offload in order to reduce a wage bill that represented almost two-thirds of the club’s 2019 turnover. And that challenge will potentially include finding a home for the arguably toxic and decidedly pricey Kepa Arrizabalaga.

As Chelsea’s season kicks off, properly, tonight at Brighton, there's no guarantee that the new crop will inject last term's missing ingredients, but from the outset, they certainly look like an exciting set of additions. Lampard’s challenge is to make them gel, to fit an effective system and then ensure none of the home-grown products who stepped into the breach last time are alienated. There’s no doubt that in Havertz, Ziyech and Werner, significant competition has been provided for Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Tammy Abraham, the serial loanees returned to the fold by Lampard, with only the pre-ban signing Christian Pulisic to augment things. On balance, they all did well, but they still enjoyed something of a free ride without a vast amount of hard challenging from within the squad. Fresh challengers will only do them good, as long as ambitious agent-fathers/brothers/uncles don’t start agitating via the tabloid back pages.

While attention will inevitably fall on the exciting array of attackers now at Lampard's disposal, scrutiny will not ease on the defensive shape that collectively shipped 79 goals in all competitions last season. The arrival of Silva’s experience and Chilwell’s much-needed left-back capabilities will shore things up (and Rice would be a compelling addition to either defence or the base of midfield), but Lampard will also need to settle on a line-up that went through endless permutations, with eight different defenders starting in ten matches or more last season. There will need to be further maturing, too, of Reece James and, if he isn’t loaned out to Everton, Fikayo Tomori, both exciting talents but with some development still do be done.

Picture: Facebook/Chelsea FC

Taking the bigger picture, Lampard is, at 42, in an incredible position. He probably has more leeway than most Chelsea managers - though only just - and as long as Abramovich and Granovskaia let him get on with shaping a squad of undoubted youthful talent, the prospect of giving Liverpool and City a run for their money is high. Lampard, former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin said recently, isn’t just building a team, but “a dynasty”. Quite a bold claim. "If you equalise [the outlay] over the two years, it's not a mad amount of money with the income from Hazard and Morata [Alvaro, a £58 million distress sale to Atlético Madrid],” Nevin told the BBC. “Also, Chelsea weren't expected to reach the Champions League two seasons in a row, which makes a massive difference to their finances."

In Granovskaia, Chelsea have a shrewd businesswoman. The £71 million paid for Havertz could be realised tremendously, much as Hazard was, bought for £32 million and whose sale to Real Madrid made four times that amount. Lampard, though, won’t be looking at his squad of young talents as lucrative investments to be harvested. He’ll be focused on one thing: not getting sacked. There’s no immediate suggestion that he is in the firing line, but Abramovich, lets face it, has form. Last season’s fourth spot, Champions League football secured and a cup final appearance will never be enough for the Chelsea owner.

The conventional wisdom, then, is that Lampard’s backing by the club’s supporters, as well as his legacy in blue, would make him harder to sack than any of the predecessors strewn along the way by Abramovich. But the Russian hasn’t shelled out £200 million-plus in recent weeks without expecting an immediate return, and football results - arguably more than even financial results - are what he craves the most.

Glad it's all over?

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

So that's it. Barring the Women's World Cup and the UEFA Nations League (no, me neither...), the European Under-21 Championship and the Africa Cup Of Nations, that's football over for another season. Two months off, for those of us who worship at the altar of The Beautiful Game™. For the players not involved in such meagre summer nibbles, it's a few weeks on the beach before pre-season and the whole circus gets going again.

However, before Season 2018-19 turns to dust, some reflection. The general assessment of the Premier League is that the right team - Manchester City - won it. Wherever you stand on clubs funded by bottomless riches, Pep Guardiola's side presented a brand of football that came as close to perfection as you could hope to see. I take some pride in that Chelsea were one of the few teams to beat City in the league (2-0 at Stamford Bridge in December), and that they took the Mancunians to a penalty shootout in the League Cup final. We'll gloss over the 6-0 spanking City gave us in February at the Etihad.

City's awesomeness notwithstanding, this has not been a vintage domestic season. Liverpool, bless them, did a decent job keeping up with their north-western rivals, but the chasing pack - in final order,  Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United - appeared at times to be competing with all the dedication of two bald men fighting over a comb. Just imagine if all six teams had really made a go of it? Perhaps there was mitigation: Spurs yet to establish a winning rhythm with their impressive new stadium (or, alternatively, it all went Spursy again); Arsenal still adjusting to life after Arsène Wenger; Manchester United readjusting to life after their frustrating flirtation with José Mourinho, and then finding that turning to a favoured son may not be the answer, either.

Which brings me to Chelsea. Towards the end of the previous season, as it was clear things were turning sour between the club and Antonio Conte, and that yet another managerial departure was inevitable, few knew what lay in store with Napoli's Maurizio Sarri touted as the next Italian in the hotseat at the Bridge. Those plugged into the Italian football jungle drums were hearing exciting things about the unprepossessing Neopolitan, who'd gone from commercial banker to football manager in the lower leagues of Tuscan football, to all of a sudden bringing a brand of football to Napoli that, while not successfully tipping Juventus off the top of Serie A, ran the Turinese giants close. So, building on a tradition of managerial gambles (Villas-Boas, Scolari and even the premature appointments of Vialli and di Matteo come to mind) Chelsea, with their owner somewhat preoccupied with visa wrangles in the UK, punted for the 60-year-old Sarri. If I skip forward a year, on paper you can't argue with third place behind City and Liverpool in the league, a Wembley final and, now, winners of the Europa League. By any token of success, Chelsea have done well this season. It's just that there's not a lot of celebration going on.

Something about Sarri just hasn't connected with the fanbase. Even Conte, when he was starting to sulk, was still routinely serenaded by the faithful singing "Antonio! Antonio! Antonio!". Notably, no such thing with "Maurizio!", a name with an identical syllabic scan. I've never been a fan of fan power: just because we have an elevated view from our seat doesn't give us any authority over a coach who works with his players every single day. What arrogance do we have to suggest that a professional manager knows less than us? On Callum Hudson-Odoi, Sarri was, in principle, quite correct in his assessment that, pre-injury, the teenager had a lot to learn about his game, especially in the defensive phase. Similarly, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, whose muscularly elegant attacking play is the kind that every football fan wants to see, especially from homegrown player, but whose physical rigour over the course of 90 minutes has been guilty of fading too soon. Surely, though, these are things you work on? Surely, there is more upside than down that these players can offer you? By the time they did start to play regularly, it was clear that Sarri was playing them reluctantly and in response to fan power. Sadly, their seasons ended too soon to injury. I hope Sarri didn't feel vindicated.

And then there were the infuriating, zero-sum substitutions: Berkley on for Kovaacic, Kovacic on for Berkley; Jorginho played regardless, the world's best holding midfielder, N'Golo Kante, pushed out to the right of the diamond; Gonzalo Higuain played up front on a Sunday in spite of Olivier Giroud's Thursday night prowess; worse, still, Eden Hazard pushed into the False 9 position in spite of both Higuain and Giroud being available recognised centre forwards. Again, Sarri knew best, or at least professed to knowing best. At risk of sounding a tad mercenary, however, that's not what we fork out hundreds of pounds a season to watch. We want to see the best being the best at what they do. Perhaps if we'd seen fewer of the results like the 6-0 defeat by City or 4-0 away drubbing by Bournemouth, not to mention the niggly two-goal defeats at Liverpool and Everton respectively, attitudes may have been better. Actually, when you look at Chelsea's Premier League performance in totality this season, the results aren't all that bad: Won 21, Drawn 9, Lost 8, Goals for 63, Goals against 39, and 72 points in total. But then compare that with the gulf between Chelsea and Liverpool and City above them - goal differences of +67 for Liverpool and a final points total of 97, and +78 and 98 points for City.

All of which means next season is going to be a tough fight for Chelsea to get back on level terms with their more successful rivals this term. Which begs two questions: how will they fare without Sarri, to be confirmed any day now as the new boss at Juventus (following an "amicable" agreement with the Chelsea hierarchy to move on)? And how will they fare without Eden Hazard, surely to finally get his move to Real Madrid this month, one that most Chelsea fans, I would contest, are respectfully at peace with after seven seasons at the club.

To the first question, I'm sure Chelsea will do fine after Sarri, just as they've been fine following each of the last fifteen managers who've gone after relatively short tenures during the Roman Abramovich era. Of course, there is the almost certain likelihood that whomever takes over will have to contend with the FIFA transfer ban, but then if that means that the club relies on its own resources for a bit, and bloods in some of the myriad youth players scattered throughout the lands as loanees, then maybe the club will get to see what fan loyalty really is about. Sometimes crowd pleasing starts at home. The big question, however, is who gets to manage them, and here's where stomachs begin to cramp up. The appointment of Frank Lampard to run a squad containing homegrown youth would be very attractive to the romantic at heart. But just as no Chelsea fan - and I mean, no Chelsea fan - would ever want to see Gianfranco Zola take the top job, in case he screws up and sullies his legend status at the club, there's a similar squeamishness about Lamps taking on a historically risky job just a single season into his managerial career. No one will deny that Frank is one of the brightest players ever to have graced the game, and will have been applying himself as Derby County manager with customary maturity, but do we want to see one of the greatest players in the blue shirt chewed up and spat out by Chelsea so soon in his managerial career?

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

And, then, Hazard. Resistance to hype might prevent the diminutive Belgian from being favourably compared to Lionel Messi and that ageing showboater Cristiano Ronaldo, but Hazard sometimes does defy the eyes. Sure, there have been plenty of games when he has been demonstrably below par, as if he gets to pick and choose when he turns it up to 11 and when he just ticks over, but just as it has been a privilege to have seen the aforementioned Zola play football, the same applies to Hazard. If he does move on - and who would begrudge him if he did at the age of 28 - we will have seen the sort of mercurial talent that, normally, only gets to play for European club royalty. So the next Chelsea manager will have the inconsiderable challenge of filling an unfillable void. 20-year-old American, Christian Pulisic, might well be that stopgap, though little, really, is known of him, apart from what can be gleaned from his unveiling at Chelsea, in which few believed that he was, actually, 20. Remarkable maturity off the pitch, so let's see what he offers on it.

Every new season brings hope, adventure and expectation, and even with Chelsea's challenges due to the two-window transfer ban (which, despite ongoing appeals, seems unlikely to be revoked) and yet another change of manager, the prospect of young players coming into the squad, and a few dead weeds disappearing, means that when that first August weekend of the new season comes around, there will be a wholesale sense of change at Stamford Bridge that hasn't been there for many an opening weekend. The coming days will, I suspect, be key to that. But perhaps, though, a little holiday from football might do us all some good.

Like two bald men fighting over a comb: Man United versus Chelsea

The jokes have started early. Rumours coming out of the US that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is making or has made a bid to buy Manchester United have been met with gags such as “Amazon buys Man U, and immediately delivers the title to their neighbours”. What a sad state of affairs, then, that arguably the biggest football club in the world, with a history as storied as any footballing royalty in Europe, like Juventus, Real Madrid or Barcelona, should be such a source of ridicule. But, then, Chelsea - their opponents today at Old Trafford - aren’t exactly all that far away, themselves, either. Not that I’m suggesting for one minute that The Blues should be considered in the same company, history-wise, as their Mancunian rivals, but it is curious, going into today’s encounter, just how many parallels exist between the two clubs, and not just the shared experience of José Mourinho as manager.

Watching the Manchester derby the other night, I genuinely felt sorry for Ole Gunnar Solskjær - super-sub in his playing days at United and effectively brought in off the managerial bench in December to become, first, caretaker manager at Old Trafford and, since the end of March, permanent head coach. For a rival fan, Solskjær in his day could infuriate with his ability to be brought on by Sir Alex Ferguson late in a game and score the kind of vital goal that secured United’s imperious reputation in the 1990s and 2000s. But since Ferguson retired, that reputation has proven unmaintainable. On Wednesday night, however, the genuinely likeable, articulate and intelligent Solskjær looked crestfallen as Manchester City first broke the deadlock with Bernardo Silva’s 54th-minute strike, and then sub Leroy Sane’s low shot a few minutes later to humiliate David De Gea. It was a game that bluntly symbolised the power shift in Manchester: United, still retaining an army of vastly expensive players (Luke Shaw earning five times more in a week than a teacher of ten years' standing earns in a year...), some of whom there only by entitlement, up against a similarly enriched City line-up coached by Pep Guardiola, justifiably the most admired manager of his generation. City may have bought their way to the summit with Sheikh Mansour’s Emirati riches, but that’s the way it goes. You can no longer stand on ceremony in modern football, as United are finding to their cost.

Compare them, then, with Chelsea. Until Roman Abramovich came along in June 2003, buying Chelsea on the back of their final game of the 2002-2003 season, in which Jesper Grønkjær dramatically volleyed in to beat Liverpool 2-1, thus securing Champions League football for the following term, the club’s legacy was, to be fair, patchy. A single league title, in 1955, a couple of FA Cups and the European Cup Winners Cup twice since 1970 was all they had to offer, with a veneer of glamour generated by a celebrity following in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When away fans sing “where we you when you were shit”, I know exactly where at Stamford Bridge I was standing. Without, though, trawling over the Abramovich era in depth, Chelsea in 2019 are in a weird place: an owner rendered indifferent due to his visa problems (and contemplating offers for the club); a stadium overhaul on permanent hold; a string of successful (and some less so) but short-lived managers since 2005, with the jury out on the current one; the prospect of a UEFA-enacted transfer ban and a squad in desperate need of overhauling, including some highly-paid European stars approaching the point when the club’s policy on over-30s means that they will be frustrated in being offered a contract of longer than 12 months. Throw in the inevitable loss of a star player (Eden Hazard), and the chance that the currently injured starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi might also leave in the direction from where his head has been turned by German club interest, and you see a club that could fall apart in football terms…as well as corporate terms. The turbulence building up around Chelsea is not all that far removed from the mood in camp at Old Trafford.

So, with the fight between Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United for third and fourth spot increasingly looking like two bald men fighting over a comb, with all four dropping points as easily as they win them, with just three more fixtures left in the season, the encounter today between The Reds and The Blues, is a real head-scratcher. Chelsea, of course, have been a nightmare this season with their visits to North-West England, their fixtures with Everton and Liverpool highlighting a mental inability to play the second half with anything like the intensity of the first. But, then, you have a Manchester United that has struggled to convince ever since Solskjær was announced with crowd-pleasing intent as the club’s full-time manager at the end of March. And that includes last Sunday’s abject, 4-0 capitulation to Everton at Goodison Park.

Today’s game may just prove to be a damp squib: two beleaguered (relatively speaking) teams, drained mentally and spiritually, trying to summon the energy to win a hotly-contested Champions League spot at the arse end of a season where two other teams are outperforming everyone in just about every dimension. By contrast, go back 11 years and United and Chelsea were meeting at the Luzhniki Stadium in the 2008 Champions League final. Two English teams at the very summit of European football. One, a team with a sainted reputation in world football, the other, an arriviste outfit managed by an unlikely champion-in-contention, Avram Grant. While it may have been decided by John Terry’s unfortunate slip on the penalty spot, these teams were a credit card’s width apart in terms of talent. Today, they might have the talent, but that talent is doing little to justify such a tag.

Both teams today are managed by individuals yet to prove their case, though in fairness, the likeable Norwegian in the red corner has only had a month or so. Both, though, are painfully and obviously lacking the leadership figures that made them each a different proposition in Moscow in 2008. Then, United had Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Edwin van der Sar and Nemanja Vidic, while Chelsea had Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack. And today? As much as I like César Azpilicueta as a right back, he has been made Chelsea’s skipper by default. He’s not a leader on the pitch, being somewhat anonymous at a time when Chelsea’s players need a kick up the backside. For Azpiliqueta, read Ashley Young in the exact same situation at United. These are, of course, isolated, individual problems out of the many more that exist for United and Chelsea. When you add them up, the great portent of today’s fixture starts to diminish. Quite a bit. Yes, it will be an encounter between a couple of prize fighters, albeit prize fighters who’ve lost their punch and with it, their fear factor. And that’s why it could be a downright let down.

In fact, whether United or Chelsea succeed in reaching that coveted fourth spot (and it’s still numerically possible for third to be reached, too), both sets of fans should be prepared for disappointment. Because whenever they play their European football next season - on a Tuesday or Wednesday, or the less illustrious Thursday night - who owns these clubs, who plays for these clubs, who runs these clubs and even who manages these clubs are all, right now big, open questions. To have one of those questions looming might be troubling, but to have all four? That’s an awful lot to have at stake at once.

Maurizio Sarri: who's fooling who?

And so a new month rolls around and with it, April Fool's Day. I trust everyone has been having fun enjoying all the pranks. And no, that front page headline you read about Theresa May's government about to collapse wasn't another one.

Neil Warnock, the beleaguered Cardiff City manager, might, on the other hand, argue that April Fools Day arrived a few hours early, as his relegation-threatened side - one which has been fighting against the odds following the morale-sapping Emiliano Sala tragedy - lost to Chelsea yesterday, after the visitors came from behind with a clearly offside César Azpilicueta equaliser, then a Ruben Loftus-Cheek header that followed an incident in which Antonio Rüdiger should have seen red for bringing down striker Kenneth Zohore when through on goal.

As a whole, Chelsea's winning performance stank. I know that's supposed to be the mark of champions, winning despite the odds, but when you get to half time and wished it was the 90-minute mark, having seen nothing to feel in any way accomplished (and paying Sky £8.99 for the pay-per-view privilege), you know you're watching a dreadful game. Cardiff, to be fair, offered little, and sympathy towards Warnock's complaints about yesterday's officials notwithstanding, their looming relegation is sadly inevitable. That doesn't, though, excuse the awful errors of referee Craig Pawson and his assistants. Azpiliqueta and Rüdiger's good fortune masked Chelsea's poor display yesterday, one for which head coach Maurizio Sarri needs to share the blame.

When you win and your supporters still boo you, something must be up. Chants of "We want Sarri out" and "You don't know what you're doing" might be largely reactive, but even the most fickle football fan doesn't call for the manager's head without good reason. Even when Antonio Conte was looking like he was attempting 'death by cop' last season, destroying any value in Diego Costa by sacking him by text and becoming increasingly sulky as the season wore down, the fans were still, largely, behind him. Perhaps winning a league title at the first time of asking helped.

Sarri is still, mostly, unproven. The praise heaped upon him from every grandee in the game for the way he had Napoli playing has largely evaporated, as whatever worked in Serie A isn't in the Premier League. True, Chelsea are still sixth and just a point behind the increasingly Spursy Tottenham; and, yes, that numerically puts Chelsea in with a chance of Champions League qualification. But does Sarri really know what he's doing? Is he really prepared to gamble with the Chelsea future of Callum Hudson-Odoi by publicly admitting that he only watched 20 minutes of his full England debut? To me, that's not a coach trying to apply tough love on a precocious teenage starlet, that's just vindictive grouching. And thus, things continue that way.

Watching Hudson-Odoi's face yesterday, as Eden Hazard, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and then Olivier Giroud went on, spoke volumes. If - and it's probably, now, a case of when - he moves to Bayern Munich, and Chelsea and, indeed, the Premier League, are shorn of a prodigious young talent, we will look back at Maurizio Sarri's obstinacy. Yes, we get it - the lad needs to improve his game. Show me an 18-year-old in any profession who's the finished article? But Sarri is in danger of doing to Hudson-Odoi what Conte did to Costa - diminishing his future value to Chelsea Football Club.

Let's face it, the teenager, along with Hazard, will be off this summer. I can't see the Chelsea board having it any other way, knowing that both players have only a season to run on their contracts. Which makes for an interesting summer ahead. Chelsea will no doubt lose their two prized assets, along with others, and I'm pretty confident that Sarri himself will be on a plane to the Stadio Olimpico, where a certain Associazione Sportiva Roma appear to be coveting the tobacco-loving 60-year-old. And, no, that's not an April Fool joke, either.

Hazard ahead: exiting the garden of Eden

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

There is, at times, too much to like about Eden Hazard. For a footballer, and a preposterously talented one at that, he is bright and articulate. And also supremely knowing. Things that might come across as gaffes by other footballers are delivered with poise and purpose by the 28-year-old Belgian, as well as with a twinkling glint in the eye. Which is why, when you first examine the situation, we are to believe that he hasn’t made up his mind whether he wants to stay at Chelsea, or move to Real Madrid. Personally, I think that he’s already on his way to the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, and it’s just a (small) matter of the Spanish giants making the right offer (which, of note, they haven’t so far). Moreover, Hazard has now said that does, now, know what decision he will make, but coyly won’t reveal what it is until “the right moment”.

Friends have allegedly been told that he will join Madrid, although there is the small matter of Real matching a suggested price tag of at least £100 million that Chelsea would expect from any deal. That, to be honest, sounds like a good bit of business, given that Hazard’s current deal with Chelsea continues until the summer of 2020. However, we’d be wise not to get too carried away…yet. The rumours and speculation about Hazard have been with us for some time now, but they were cranked up a notch or three the other day by the sudden surfacing of a brief clip from an interview Hazard gave French radio station RMC two months ago. Now, the full interview has become available, and inevitably it presents a somewhat less dramatic view. “For now,” Hazard tells the station, “the only thing to think about is playing well for Chelsea. I have a year-and-a-half left on my contract, everyone knows. My decision will be known soon, but it’s not something that affects my mind. I think about it, but without thinking about it. When I’m in the field, I just want to play. We’ll see what happens after.” Hazard does admit that a decision has been made “more or less”, but not when he’ll reveal it. “I do not know, we’ll see. I will wait for the right moment,” he maintains. This is both Hazard being the diplomat, and Hazard being slightly disingenuous.

As a fan, I’d be sad to see him go - he is a rare talent, one of a kind we haven’t seen at the club, probably since Gianfranco Zola’s time as a Chelsea player, and even then it would be hard to fully compare the two.  Having someone of Hazard’s genuinely unique talent, who can justifiably be compared as a game-changer with the likes of Messi or Ronaldo, is a valuable commodity that any other team would love to have in their ranks. But if you’re going to cash in on a player that has probably had his head turned by the idea of playing for Real Madrid, now’s the time to do it.

No one can say we haven’t had value out of a player Chelsea signed as a 21-year-old from Lille in 2012 for £32 million. Given that Chelsea have had players on its books even older than that who’ve never played a minute for the first team, that fee seems like a bargain now, given the 104 goals he’s scored for the Blues since joining in June 2012. He’s been mostly on scintillating form this season and is currently the Premier League's fourth top scorer with 12 goals, as well as having made the league's most assists with 10. The arrival of Gonzalo Higuain to replace the anemic Álvaro Morata and give a more muscular striking alternative to Oliver Giroud should give Hazard a new lease of life, enabling him to drop out to his favoured left wing, rather than toil in the 'false nine' role Maurizio Sarri frustratingly plodded on with. It will keep him engaged as Chelsea chase a probably fourth place finish and Champions League football next term. It won’t, however, be enough to keep him in West London. Even if Chelsea are able to dangle a new contract, thought to be well in excess of £300,000 a week, to keep him, I’d be amazed if he stayed. And good luck to him.

Sarri's recent clumsy attempt at, what I'm in no doubt was, reverse psychology, berating the Belgium for being "...more an individual player than a leader", seemed to cascade off Hazard like water off a duck's back. The player has said that he frustrates managers almost as a matter of course, something Sarri has already acknowledged: "You know very well that Eden is a wonderful player but he’s an individual player. He’s an instinctive player. For him, it’s very difficult to play only in one position. He likes very much to go in the direction of the ball, wanting the ball at his feet.” That, Sarri should recognise, is precisely why Chelsea will miss him when he’s gone. The Italian's dogmatic obsession with choreographed possession is at odds with Hazard's mercurial free spirit. Don’t forget, this is a player who once arbitrarily switched flanks midway through a match simply because he'd had enough of Antonio Conte barking in his ear on the touchline. A maverick tendency like that will never sit well with Sarri's studious and rigid philosophy, which might explain why the Chelsea coach was somewhat sanguine the other day about the prospect of a Hazard leaving (“Eden is 28. If he wants to go, I think he has to go. Of course, I hope the opposite. He has the potential to be the best player in Europe.”).

Picture: Twitter/Eden Hazard

If he does leave (and that does still depend on Real Madrid actually wanting him - a point that's not entirely clear, since PSG's Neymar and Kylian Mbappe are said to be their preferred target) - Chelsea have options. One must surely be keeping Callum Hudson-Odoi, the 18-year-old with the potential to be as unique and effective as Hazard. And there will be the summer arrival of Christian Pulisic, joining from Borussia Dortmund for £57.4 million (an arrival, though, that could see Hudson-Odoi moving in the opposite direction to Bayern Munich). Another possibility might be going after Barcelona's reportedly unsettled Philippe Coutinho. Neymar and Mbappe not withstanding, Hazard must be of interest to the Bernabeu power brokers, who are yet to have backfilled the starring role Cristiano Ronaldo enjoyed for nine seasons. That said, slapping a price tag of more than £100 million might put them off Hazard, even with the prospect of loanee Mateo Kovačić being used as a makeweight. If that stalls a move, Hazard will simply run down his contract, and who knows which Eden Hazard Chelsea will have to deal with in his final season. Unlike the ugly manner with which Thibaut Courtois angled his way out of Stamford Bridge, one would hope that the classy manner with which Hazard has mostly carried himself would see him remain hungry to contribute in what would be a final full season. Even if Hazard himself now knows what he’d like to do, there are still too many variables beyond his control, not least of which Chelsea, who would presumably still want to keep him, and Real Madrid, who have yet to publicly show their hand.

Sarri seems to be the hardest word - part 2

Since my post on Monday, in which I tried to examine the wisdom of Maurizio Sarri questioning the mentality and motivation of his players, the Chelsea head coach has continued in this vein by questioning the leadership skills of Eden Hazard.

"I don't know," the Italian said at yesterday's press conference ahead of tonight's EFL Trophy semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge. "At this moment he is more an individual player than a leader. He’s very important of course as he’s a great player and he can always win the match in two minutes, sometimes in one minute, but at the moment he’s not a leader. He’s a great player, one of the best in the world."

Now, with Hazard arguably one of the best players in the world, if not at least in England, and with speculation about him moving to Real Madrid continuing to swirl about like the snow flurries outside my window, you might say that Sarri is taking an even bigger risk by drawing any negative focus on the Belgian. Clearly, though, Sarri knew what he was saying, why he was saying it, and when he was saying it.

"I think we need to react on the pitch, all the rest is nothing," Sarri had said earlier in the presser when asked about how his team will respond to his criticism of the team after their dismal defeat to Arsenal last weekend. "We need to discuss our problems. The first step, if I want to improve, is to accept the mistake otherwise its impossible to improve. It’s a normal discussion for improving." But, in talking about the kind of reaction he's looking for, the question of leadership emerged. "It depends on the atmosphere around the players," he said, "but we have some players with the characteristics to be a leader, such as Azpilicueta, David Luiz, so I think they can help all the other players to get the right mentality."

Hazard can be a confounding figure. There's no doubting his brilliance, but sometimes it can be dimmed, either because his box of tricks gets stifled by defenders, or by the player himself dropping down a couple of gears. Sarri, and Antonio Conte before him, should share some of the blame in this. Playing Hazard as a false 9 is clearly not what the player wants to do and, equally clearly, when he's played as a target man when there's little dropping in for him, it would be understandable for Hazard to get frustrated. But is that necessarily a leadership issue? When Chelsea had a spine of leadership - Čech, Terry, Lampard, Drogba - the authority and effect was tangible. Today, it's patchy. Azpiliqueta is a great defender and a worthy captain, but he's no John Terry. Likewise, David Luiz has passion aplenty, and when he's not making silly mistakes, evokes some of the blood-and-thunder JT used to exude. But there is something lacking throughout the current team. Jorginho was brought to Chelsea by Sarri to act as his lieutenant, but his influence in the holding role has faded of late, and with the manager stubbornly refusing to rotate his No.5 (ideally by playing Kante there), the midfielder has offered little in the way of being the engine room.

So what, then, is Sarri's expectations of Hazard? And why has he chosen to rattle the Belgian's status just as Chelsea are hoping he will shun Real Madrid's interest and sign a new contract? Obviously, reverse psychology can't be ruled out, but again, it seems an extremely high-risk strategy where Hazard, precariously poised over a new deal, is concerned. Perhaps, though, "leadership" was the wrong choice of words. Perhaps Sarri was getting at something else. Earlier this week Hazard made an alarming admission to France Football magazine, saying that he's been a source of frustration to his past managers...and will continue to be so. "I didn’t just frustrate Conte," he said. "In my career, I’ve frustrated all my coaches. And with Sarri, once again, I frustrate him. They think that I need to mark more, do more of this and more of that. And the next coach that I have, I’ll frustrate him as well."

Hazard is, however, a consummate wind-up. His ambiguity over his Chelsea future has been conveyed playfully, with a trademark twinkle in his eye suggesting that the witty and bright Hazard is just messing around half the time. Probably only he and his agent knows where he wants to go, or even where he will actually end up. Which brings me to tonight's game against Tottenham. If Sarri wants to get a reaction out of any one player with this fixture, Hazard is probably the player to poke with a sharp stick.

Hazard, you’ll remember, was in the thick of it two years ago when Spurs blew their Premier League title chances at Stamford Bridge. "We don't want Tottenham to win the Premier League; the fans, the club and the players," he said before the ill-tempered 2-2 draw in May 2016 that ended Spurs' hopes of preventing Leicester City from winning the league title. Hazard's stunning 83rd-minute strike brought the scores level...and led to temperatures boiling over. So, with Sarri looking for a reaction, both from the Arsenal defeat but even from the painful 3-1 loss to Spurs in the league in November, a defeat that ended Chelsea's 12-game unbeaten run, it's possible that the Italian coach is engaging in some mind games with his mercurial Belgian.

Quite how Hazard will react remains to be seen. If, tonight, Hazard is again played out of preferred position in the false 9 role, he may well continue to go through the motions. Without the newly-signed loanee Gonzalo Higuain, and with Álvaro Morata seemingly on his way back to Spain, if Sarri chose to start with Olivier Giroud up front and have Hazard play in from the left, his preferred position, he might just get the positive response he's looking for. But, as has now been well documented, Sarri's reluctance to try something as adventurous might mean that, until Higuain can be integrated, Hazard might stay, unhappily, in the middle, and now with his own coach questioning his seniority, too. Not good, really...

Sarri seems to be the hardest word

The expected response, when asked by one's other half when walking through the door after a victorious Saturday afternoon's football watching, is to grin inanely and be largely effervescent. But that’s just not the football fan. Sometimes we just cannot be satisfied. Thus, the other Saturday, my ever-loving girlfriend was met with a distinct "meh” when I showed up after Chelsea's 2-1 win over Newcastle United.

Because, apart from a couple of well taken goals from Pedro and Willian, there wasn’t much else to enthuse about. Which sounds bitter, I know. We won, they didn’t. However, it's not about being greedy, about being the spoilt fan of a monied, so-called "elite" club. It is about why things just don’t feel right at Chelsea at the moment. Fast forward, then, to the aftermath of last Saturday's appointment at the Emirates. A keenly poised fixture, if ever there was one - a London derby, fifth hosting fourth, two managers in their first terms trying to change things around, and so on.

"I have to say that I'm extremely angry, very angry indeed," was the quote of the game, and it came not from an exasperated fan, or the Arsenal had coach, Unai Emery, a man still trying to win over a section of the Arsenal faithful. No, it was  Chelsea's Maurizio Sarri, smarting - and then some - from a 2-0 defeat, a defeat he attributed "...to our mentality more than anything else, our mental approach. We played against a team which mentally was far more determined than we were. And this is something I can't accept."

This has been a theme creeping into Sarri's assessment of his side in recent weeks. Despite resolutely maintaining fourth place in the Premier League, Chelsea's performances have grown frustratingly limp, with fans and football writers listing an ever-growing litany of complaints: Eden Hazard being played somewhat ineffectively as a 'false 9'; N'Golo Kanté being pushed into the right of midfield rather than the holding position in which he won league titles with both Leicester and Chelsea; Jorginho, Sarri's trusted on-field lieutenant at Napoli, being given the holding position as a fulcrum role, and not quite pulling it off; senior club players like Willian and Pedro blowing hot and cold, and Marcos Alonso defending like he just can’t be bothered any more; and then there’s the slavish obedience to Sarri's possession obsession, resulting in defenders and even a supposedly attack-minded midfielder like Ross Barkley engaging in tippy-tappy triangles that rarely break over the half-way line. Sometimes it’s been habitually wayward David Luiz who, to his credit, has suggested a "sod this!" attitude and come bombing forward to loft a ball into one of the attacking midfielders (itself a noteworthy statement, given the lack of a prolific striker in the ranks).

This might sound like a reappearance of my Monday Moan, so named during José Mourinho's final months at Chelsea when, from the opening game of the 2015-16 season until his dismissal the following December, Chelsea were stubbornly frustrating week in, week out, and it was impossible not to rant on a Monday morning while angrily travelling to work. With Sarri, things haven’t got that bad: with Mourinho, Chelsea, with largely the same players, slumped from League champions to at risk of relegation in an alarming four months. That’s not at risk at the moment, which suggests that this is a matter of relativity. For the manager to be blaming his players' mentality is surely a reflection on him as a coach? He and his staff train the players and motivate them, sending them out to do battle with self-belief and a plan. But from the stand or from the sofa, Chelsea's players seem to be lacking both or at least a Plan B.

The prospect of Gonzalo Higuain arriving in the next few days to replace the [hopefully] outbound and moribund Alvaro Morata will hopefully be more than a sticking plaster to heal an annoying but not fatal cut. If any player has demonstrated a poor mentality, to use Sarri's words, it’s been Morata who, even after scoring has looked more in need of a phone call to The Samaritans than the traditional group hug from his team mates. Funny, he's never looked quite right at Chelsea, and that ridiculous £60 million fee probably didn’t help. Higuain has, at least, a relationship with Sarri, and in being a proper centre forward, and one with muscle, too, he might go some way to restore the attacking approach that worked so well when Diego Costa was marauding defenders and goalkeepers. We shouldn’t get too carried away, though. Higuain will not be a silver bullet. Balls will still need to get to him, which means that if Chelsea's defenders are still dicking about, passing to each other as if still warming up for a training session at Cobham, Higuain will soon get tired of waiting.

Sarri, however, is certainly not convinced that Higuain is the answer, and his increasingly tetchy rhetoric is the kind we’ve heard before from Chelsea managers...and it usually doesn’t end well. "The club knows what I want, I’m sure they are doing their best," he told Sky Italia at the weekend. There’s no suggestion that this was a dig at the club, but the fact he has had to mention the club's prime role in player acquisition several times has been more than a defensive move. "But, he added, "whoever arrives will have difficulties with the mentality of today." Again with the mentality thing.

During his explosive post-match presser on Saturday, Sarri commented on how his players were "extremely difficult" to motivate and cannot be changed. A quite bizarre admission when you think about it. This is a team that went 12 games unbeaten and, even if they’ve lost four of the 11 games that have followed that run, shouldn’t be lacking the urge to win more. Sarri is not Antonio Conte, whose tough training regime from the beginning threatened to exhaust his players, nor Mourinho, whose Mourinho-ness led to “palpable discord”. No, Sarri is a man who, despite the absence of trophies in his managerial career (a career that includes a large period coaching in the lower leagues of Tuscany before anything more senior in Italy) was appointed to manage one of the top teams in the Premier League, barely three weeks before his first competitive game, and who has had to go from a standing start at a club with a notoriously low tolerance of failure. So we should cut him some slack. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that his obstinate possession approach and reluctance to make changes in a game until it's almost too late (a trait he he shares with his compatriot predecessor) means that if it ain’t working, it continues so. This, in turn, leads to players getting frustrated, which leads to players effectively downing tools.

It’s been pointed out frequently recently, in context of Chelsea’s performances, that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Watching Ross Barkley, a player you used to think had a bit of grit about him, inside the Chelsea half with his back to the Newcastle goal and repeatedly exchanging short passes with Luiz and Alonso, was certainly maddening. After 34 competitive games so far this season, it would be nice to think that even the players had grown tired of this repetitive madness. We remain to be comvinced they have.

If, as Sarri suggests, the problem is more mental than tactical, then the responsibility is still his to change things. "We played against a team [Arsenal] which mentally was far more determined than we were. And this is something I can't accept," he said on Saturday. "We had a similar issue in the league game at Tottenham. We spoke a great deal about that loss and our approach at the time, and I spoke to the players, and I thought we'd overcome this issue. But it appears we still have this issue and we still seem to lack sufficient motivation and being mentally solid and our determination. So I'm not happy, I'm really not happy." Significantly, Chelsea's next opponent are Spurs, in the EFL Trophy semi-final second leg on Thursday, a tie in which the Blues trail by a single goal. Having the manager talk about "a group of players [that] are extremely difficult to motivate" ahead of a sensitive tie with Chelsea's old foe is extremely worrying, even if his comments were intended to get under those players' skins. To give Sarri some credit, he wasn’t throwing his players completely under a bus with his comments. "But I couldn’t possibly say I am not responsible as well, in part at least, for the mental approach. That's something we have to share," he said during the presser. But he also highlighted his team's lack of ruthlessness, especially in the final third, a statement hinting at the value of bringing in a forward like Higuain.

Using a press conference to fire up underperforming players is a notoriously risky business. Many will have preferred Sarri to kept his comments to the team conference room at Cobham. "It's a huge, huge gamble from Sarri's point of view," said Rio Ferdinand on BT Sport after the Arsenal game. "He's looking for a response and rightly so. [But] doing it publicly in a presser after a game, it's questionable because these players have been through this with a couple of managers, and the managers get gone." Certainly his rant revealed some home truths. "A player at this level can't be afraid to face up to their responsibilities, or coming to speak to the coach about issues or mistakes they've made," he said. "If they were afraid of that, they shouldn't be playing at this level in the first place. The players and I talk very openly about what's happening. I'm the person responsible for the team, of course. So that means we have to discuss issues, and it's important my players have the attitude I'm asking them to have. If they don't have that, they shouldn't be playing at this level." Which could also be interpreted as a dig at the Chelsea board who bought the players.

I had no real view on Sarri when Chelsea appointed the Italian in the summer. The consensus was that he must have been doing something right at Napoli if they were only trailing Juventus by reasons of the Turin juggernaut's relentless dominance of Serie A. We read Sarri's somewhat fairytale backstory, that he’d given up a career as a commodities broker to coach in Tuscany. And yet here he was, being appointed by Roman Abramovich, a man with exacting standards of expectation, who even fired a manager as genial and as successful as Carlo Ancelotti for not quite matching the league-and-cup double of his first season in charge. Sarri seemed like a gamble, but one thing we Chelsea fans have learned from the managerial hire-and-fire merry-go-round is that in Roman we trust (though last summer he was somewhat distracted by visa wrangles with the British government). Having a go, publically, at players is hardly a last roll of the dice. But unless something - a change of tactics, a detonation of motivation under the players, fresh blood...something - comes along, questions about Sarri's longevity will be inevitable. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the "What if?" conversation has already cropped up during Chelsea board meetings. Because when discord becomes palpable, there is usually only one outcome...

It’s a Thursday thing

Thursdays. Not quite Friday, but better than Wednesday and, thankfully, not Monday. In my childhood it was the day of Top Of The Pops and Cubs. In adulthood it is now chiefly known as the last day of the week in the office before the now-obligatory "working from home" Friday, a phenomenon so extreme that black cab drivers have stopped coming into London on the final workday due to a lack of business.

In the football world Thursdays have become a Championship day ranking behind the Premier League of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, a Lidl day, if you will, to two Waitrose days. OK, painful analogies, I know, but essentially, there is a clear gulf in class between the Champions League and the Europa League fixtures of a Thursday evening, arguably pound shop European football and an unnecessary distraction as clubs are forced to rearrange their domestic games to Sundays while still having to deal with travelling insane distances to get home. As a case in point, Chelsea's return flight from last night's opening Europa League tie against PAOK in Thessaloniki was delayed by weather, denying Maurizio Sarri's side rest and vital training before Sunday's visit to West Ham.

At some point this season Chelsea will have to visit Videoton, which isn’t a dodgy 80s David Cronenberg film starring Debbie Harry but, in fact, MOL Vidi FC, also known as Vidi, a Hungarian club based in Székesfehérvár. Wherever that is. Likewise, they will also have to visit BATE, better known as FC BATE Borisov, a Belarusian club from Barysaw. None of these - including last night's opponents, the Greek side PAOK - are glamour teams, or particularly glamourous locations with which to visit. Sorry, PAOK, Vidi and BATE, but face facts.

Elitist as it sounds, but when your European adventures have taken you to Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Paris and Munich in the 14 years since Roman Abramovich's largesse transformed Chelsea into proper European players, it's slightly galling to be in the Europa League. Fans know this. It's why, as Chelsea failed to finish last season in the Premier League's top four, home and opposition supporters willingly engaged in banter about Thursday evening social plans. Chelsea know that the "Thursday gig" lacks the appeal of the senior European fixtures on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, pricing tickets for the group-stage Europa fixtures at just £20 to drum up a crowd (which, thankfully, they will do, as mugs like me will be at Stamford Bridge on 4 October for the visit of Videoton, rather than at home throwing things at the TV because BT Sport have got Glenn Hoddle in the studio again).

Home games not withstanding, it's the away fixtures that provide the bigger challenge, both for the club and its supporters. None of Chelsea's group opponents are based in particularly easy-to-reach cities, so my hat goes off to those loyal followers who will take off two days from work and shell out a considerable amount of money booking flights and trains at a relatively late stage to go and watch 90 minutes of football in places where language, hostile home fans and provocative policing will make life less than comfortable. But that is the fun of following your club into Europe.

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

For Maurizio Sarri, the headache is one of making decisions on players. For last night's visit to Greece, Eden Hazard, David Luiz and Mateo Kovacic were left back in London, a deliberate choice to rest Hazard, in particular, ahead of this Sunday's Premier League game at the London Stadium. On paper, however, the line-up Sarri fielded against PAOK was pretty strong, with a fired-up Willian made captain for the night, and who subsequently put in a captain's performance, scoring the one goal that separated the sides. The Europa League is, for Chelsea and Sarri alike, an adjustment: "For an English team the Europa League is a very difficult competition," the Italian said after last night's game. "Because in Italy, if I play in Greece on Thursday I can ask to play on Monday night, but I have to play again in 63 hours, on Sunday morning." He's not sure how this will affect team selections in the future. "It is not a big problem now because we have played only six matches but in the future it may be a problem. I hope to qualify before the last one or two matches of the group stage.

One of Sarri's undoubted problems is and will continue to be striker Alvaro Morata who, despite a lot of creditable toil last night, wasted countless chances in front of goal. "Morata has to gain confidence with one, two or three goals," said Sarri. "I am not able to give him confidence. In this game he had three or four opportunities, he was unlucky. I hope in the future I can try to help him, but the confidence comes only with goals. But I have to say also that for the first time this season he was very ready in the box. He was on the ball, he was active."

Morata not withstanding, Chelsea's win at the Toumba Stadium yesterday evening meant that Sarri had recorded six wins out of his first six competitive games as Chelsea coach. He has a right to be pleased, but also to have concerns: "We were in control of the match for 90 minutes. We had a lot of opportunities, we missed them, so I am really happy with the three points and the performance but not the result, because when it is time to kill the match, we have to kill the match." That will have to determine team selection - and ensuring players remain fit. Unlike Sarri's predecessor, Antonio Conte, the latest Italian in the Chelsea dugout should have no complaints about squad depth. Last night he could even afford to leave Gary Cahill, with all his European competition experience, on the bench.

Picture: Chelsea FC

A tougher challenge will be deciding when to play and when to rest Hazard. Convincing him to stay at the club and not move to Real Madrid was, effectively, a brand new signing. The glee with which the Belgian skipped through Cardiff last Saturday, scoring a hat trick in the process, was a joy to behold. Tougher opposition awaits Chelsea in Europe after the group stage - which they should clear - is over, but by then the FA Cup and League Cup will, in theory, be providing further distraction. Conte made these commitments a further stick to attack the Chelsea board with, unnecessarily so. Sarri has selection challenges, but these are largely which, out of a talented squad, he can pick for their Thursday adventures to be fresh and ruthless enough to win games by more than the one-goal margin they recorded last night. Olivier Giroud must, surely, have earned his place as first-choice centre forward, but that surely can't mean that £70 million Morata becomes a standby option. Whatever confidence issues have hampered him since Christmas, meaning that an expensive resource has now been misfiring in consecutive seasons, needs to be addressed. It's time to sharpen up.

Hazard warning

When I began my blogging career eight years ago I didn’t give much thought to what I’d write about. The first post just happened to be about football - because I was angry - but when I christened the blog What Would David Bowie Do?, most assumed it would have a musical connection. I now realise that, over the last few weeks, it has been exclusively about football. But, then, can you blame me when there have been such sumptuous pickings from the beautiful game to blog about?

Today, my friends, will be no different. Matters musical can and will wait. Because - and I know the World Cup confetti has barely been Hoovered up, but things move quickly - Chelsea burst back into my consciousness at the end of last week with, finally, the firing of Antonio Conte and...er...finally, the hiring of Maurizio Sarri. Sarri appeared yesterday in his first interview for Chelsea's in-house TV channel and gave an impressive, eloquent account of himself. Speaking in fluent English (a marked contrast to Conte at the start, although he worked hard to learn the language) Sarri set out his intent: "I think with one or two adjustments, we can try to play my football," he said, perhaps making reference to the entertaining style he employed at Napoli and which first drew Chelsea's attention to the former banker.

Quite what those adjustments will be remains to be seen, though the arrival of Italian midfielder Jorginho as part of the deal with Napoli that brought Sarri to Stamford Bridge, is surely only just the start. Juve's Daniele Rugani and Gonzalo Higuain are reportedly also on Sarri's shopping list, though both might be difficult to extract from the reigning Italian champions, even if they have just shelled out £105 million for Cristiano Ronaldo.

The bigger headache, however, for Sarri will be holding on to players, in particular, Eden Hazard, but also Thibaut Courtois, Willian and Gary Cahill (who, being over 30 and slipping behind Antonio Rudiger and, potentially, Rugani, is unlikely to get any more gametime under Sarri than he was getting from Conte). Willian grew increasingly frustrated last season - most notably in the FA Cup Final, when he was only brought off the bench in the 91st minute, having spent most of the game warming up on the touchline. Courtois, who has just one more season to run on his contract, has been hinting at a move back to Madrid for some time, largely due to his children still living there with their mother, Marta Domínguez, the goalkeeper's former partner.

But it is Hazard who poses the greatest challenge for Sarri and Chelsea. Having captained Belgium to third place in the World Cup, the club has given the mercurial midfielder three weeks off to recover - a generous amount of time and long enough to give plenty of thought as to what he might do next. At the weekend he hinted at what that could be, saying that "it might be time to discover something different" after six "wonderful years" at Chelsea. And, guess what? Ronaldo's move to Juve just created a vacancy on the left side of the attack at Real Madrid, the club Hazard referred to on Saturday as "my preferred destination". That may well be the case, but Madrid are apparently eyeing up either Neymar or Kylian Mbappe as first-choice targets.

For his part, Hazard is hardly agitating for a move. The affable Belgian has always been relaxed about his future (and the latest rumouring is nothing new). "It is not my decision, he told reporters on Saturday. "The club will decide. Now I just want to go on holidays and we will see what happens."

Nevertheless, now might be the time Hazard sees as perfect to fulfil his dream of winning the Champions League. He signed for Chelsea in June 2012, just after the club had won the European prize. With the club reduced to the Europa League next season, playing for the current European champions would be highly appealing. However, even if Madrid come in for him, Chelsea are expected to slap a whopping £200 million price tag on the Belgian, who still has two years to run on his current contract.

A further question is, can Chelsea afford to lose him? Hazard is, without doubt, the best player on their books. I would even argue that, on his day, he's the best player in the Premier League. That's an asset any club would be reluctant to give up. But having helped Chelsea to two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League, at 27 the club has certainly had the best out of him, and could be tempted to cash in. Even if Madrid is unlikely to spend anything like what Chelsea want for Hazard, he would certainly not go cheaply, which would raise decent funds for some of the names on Sarri's list.

It would be a wrench to see the charismatic Belgian go, but maybe the time is right. Better now while he is relatively relaxed about both his relationship with Chelsea and his future, rather than when he is agitated and demotivated, as Diego Costa was when he was eventually released to Atlético Madrid. Under Conte last season, Hazard continued to demonstrate his worth, week in, week out, unlocking defences like no other and winning critical spot kicks, as he did in the FA Cup Final in May, an otherwise dire affair in which the only thing separating Chelsea and Manchester United was Hazard's penalty.

Sarri promises a fresh start and a new approach, which may be enriched by new signings that could also compensate for Hazard's potential departure. Jorginho - while no direct replacement - is certainly one of the most coveted creative midfielders in Europe (his signing was a major blow to Pep Guardiola, who'd earmarked him as a replacement for Yaya Touré at Manchester City). That said, Hazard could be a player whom Sarri would want to build his team around, even with the acquisition of his 'own' players.

Despite maintaining that his future will be up to Chelsea's to decide, much depends on the player himself. Chelsea fans are somewhat sanguine about Hazard's future. Knowing that nothing in football lasts forever, some could even be forgiven for thinking that it's amazing he's lasted as long as he has in West London, given all the comparisons to Messi and Ronaldo. "He is a player who has maturity and a lot of leadership," said his Belgium national team boss, Roberto Martinez in an interview with Spanish radio. "Hazard could carry a new project anywhere in the world. He is at the best moment of his career. He could fit in any team in the world." Over the next three weeks we will find out whether that team continues to be Chelsea or not.