EDEN HAZARD and David Luiz are proving their worth thanks to Chelsea new signing Marcos Alonso.
That's the opinion of Sunderland legend Niall Quinn, who believes the 25-year-old is the main reason Antonio Conte's new tactics have proven to be a success.
Alonso joined Chelsea from Fiorentina on transfer deadline day for £23m and has slotted straight into the Blues setup.
Quinn told Sky Sports: "The 3-4-3 is what goes down in the team sheets that appear in the papers and on the TV screen before games but when Chelsea attack now Marcos Alonso becomes a winger and when they defend he is a left full-back.
"He has more mobility than Ivanovic and he suits the new style.
"His versatility means that David Luiz can do the things he is good at, like moving the ball forward quickly and also be well covered when attempting the things he is not so good at, like old fashioned defending.
"Alonso has also freed Eden Hazard up on the left side of a front three.
"Hazard is part of the new theme at Chelsea right now."
After the emphatic 4-0 win over Manchester United yesterday at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea find themselves just one point off the top of the Premier League table.
Next up for Conte's side is a trip to West Ham in the EFL Cup on Wednesday evening.
Antonio Conte has vowed to help Eden Hazard reach his full potential as the Chelsea midfielder, who starred in Saturday’s victory over Burnley, attempts to rediscover the form that made him Footballer of the Year in England in 2015.
Hazard, who endured such a miserable season last year when he failed to score a league goal until April as Jose Mourinho was sacked and Chelsea finished 10th, has looked a completely different player already this year under a new manager.
The Belgian was outstanding on Saturday as he scored his second goal of the season and was man of the match in a 3-0 victory over Burnley which also featured goals from Willian and Victor Moses and resulted in Chelsea going to the top of the Premier League with three wins out of three before being displaced on goal difference by Manchester City yesterday.
Conte is determined to get the best out of HazardCREDIT: AFP
Conte, who arrived at Chelsea after guiding Italy to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016, has clearly made the recuperation of Hazard a priority and predicts further improvement from the winger as he rediscovers the confidence that helped make him such a force in 2014-15, when he scored 19 goals in all competitions and was named the PFA Player of the Year and also lifted the Football Writers’ Association award.
“Eden is a fantastic player,” Conte said. “He has great talent and also I know he’s a good guy. What’s important is that he wants to improve and wants to work very hard to improve himself.
“I want to work with my players to improve them and put them in the best condition to show their talent – and Hazard is one of those. There are others but above all I’m talking about the wingers. We have fantastic wingers who are all very good one v one, it’s important to put them in the best condition and I’m very happy for Eden.”
Hazard is incomparable with the sulky player of last seasonCREDIT: AFP
Watching Hazard in action against Burnley it was hard to even compare him to the sulky, withdrawn character who looked so out of sorts last season and who contributed to the departure of Mourinho as Chelsea missed out on European football for the first time in 20 years. But a lot has changed since then for the 25-year-old who captained Belgium at Euro 2016 and is now entering the most important years of his career.
He opened the scoring against Burnley after only nine minutes, running all the way from the halfway line before firing home from the edge of the area, and could have scored two or three more in what was a hugely comfortable victory.
“It’s an important time for him,” said Conte. “Last season is the past but it’s important to remember, always, and to keep last season in our minds because when there is a difficult situation it’s important to look back and find new strength to go forward.”
Chelsea do not have the distractions of European football this seasonCREDIT: REX
What will excite Hazard is Conte’s surprisingly attacking philosophy. Far from being restricted by a traditional Italian desire to defend, the new Chelseamanager has instead shown a willingness to take risks.
In the victory over West Ham in their opening game, secured in the last minute by Diego Costa, Chelsea played 4-2-4 in the final stages and after securing their first clean sheet of the season on Saturday – in fact Chelsea’s first at Stamford Bridge in 14 matches – Conte outlined his desire not to defend deep.
“If I have to choose one way to defend I prefer to attack,” he said. “The best way to defend is to go forward. When you stay behind for too long the long ball, anything can happen. We are improving also in this aspect.
“It is very strange that at home we conceded for 13 games. God, it’s very strange for a great team like Chelsea to concede a goal for 13 games. I reminded this to my players so I was very pleased to get a clean sheet.
“It’s important to score the goal, it’s important to score one more goal than the opponent, but to keep the clean sheet is important for the confidence for the whole team. Because when you keep a clean sheet it means the whole team worked very good, not only the defenders.”
Conte has implemented an attacking philosophyCREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
Having performed so badly last season, Chelsea have now won four in a row under Conte, including three victories in the Premier League and one in the EFL Cup.
“It’s important to start the new season in the right way,” said the manager, who dismissed any talk of going the whole season unbeaten. “After a bad season like last season it’s very difficult to think that. We must go day by day and step by step and to face every game with the right intensity, concentration and focus.”
First priority for Conte going into transfer deadline week remains finding an experienced defender to add to his squad but for Burnley the picture is more complicated. Manager Sean Dyche is desperate for reinforcements, and already has Chelsea reserve striker Patrick Bamford in his sights, but admits finding the right players is not easy in the current market.
Bamford has emerged as a target for BurnleyCREDIT: REX
“We’re looking and we’re certainly active,” Dyche said. “But there’s no guarantees. We do need support, we are in the market so let’s see what happens.
“The new TV money has changed the market but that money can only be used immediately if you’ve got a backer who’s going to carry the can for the next three, four or five years. We’ve got wealthy people on the board but they’re not wealthy at the same level as the people here at Chelsea.
“Yes, Leicester won the title last year but Leicester have got people with a few shekels, they’ve done all right for themselves. We’re just not in that market.”
Hazard shone during the Blues 2014-15 title-winning campaign but failed to fire during last season's dismal defence of their crown.
New Chelsea boss Antonio Conte has told Eden Hazard he can mould him into the Blues' Lionel Messi.
Hazard had the world at his feet at the end of the 2014-15 campaign when he was crowned Footballer of the Year as the Blues won the Premier League title.
But he had a rotten season last time out as he and his team-mates flunked, and was a shadow of the player who had set the top flight on fire.
Conte, however, has vowed to get him firing on all cylinders again and sees no reason why the likes of Hazard and Brazilian star Willian won’t soon be ranked alongside the greats of the game.
Attacking flair: Willian and Hazard will be key to Conte's plans
Genius: Messi has five Ballon d'Or crowns to his name
Champion: Ronaldo secured European glory with club and country The Italian said: “Chelsea have players who can become top, top, top players. These players with work can still improve a lot.
“Because now we have players, fantastic players, who have great talent but in this moment the world doesn’t think they are the same level as Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo or Paul Pogba.
“But in our squad there are players who, with work, can improve a lot and reach this level. I’m sure about this.
“It’s important that the players understand they must work to show that 'Now I am a top player, but I want to become top, top, top, top and want to stay there’.
“The mentality is important. The heart is important. Patience and the will to improve is very important. And in this case it’s important for the manager to take the best players and try to improve them.
“Last season was bad for all the players, it’s incredible that Chelsea finished 10th in the table.
“The habit of Chelsea is to win the title or to stay till the end of the season fighting to win the title, to play in the Champions League.
Ready to go: Conte wants his players to give everything
Disappointing: Hazard failed to score until April last season “And last season it was incredible, not only for Hazard but for other players also. It’s important for us to recover Hazard in the best condition: technique, tactical, physical, overall and with the good mentality.
“But I spoke with him and I’m very happy. I’m pleased to train a fantastic player like him and also the other players.
“It’s important for me, I repeat, next season to create the right spirit in the team and with great organisation, a great physical condition we can have a good season.”
Such is the talent at Wilmots' disposal, Tottenham’s Chadli and Everton’s Mirallas don't feature.
For a nation that has never won a major football tournament Belgium’s Red Devils carry an onerous weight of expectation into Euro 2016. One of their most gifted former players, Enzo Scifo, who played in four World Cups including the 1986 semi-final, expects a Belgium-France final and he is not alone.
But that’s what happens when a squad is the most expensively assembled in the tournament and is the continent’s leading side in the Fifa rankings, second only to Argentina.
Coach Marc Wilmots, a former international team-mate of Scifo, has been trying to rein in expectation. A semi-final place, he says, would be ‘something special’, ‘an exceptional achievement’, and ‘a great result’.
Wilmots, whose managerial record is thin, has been criticised for putting substance ahead of style with a widespread belief that the team should be more attractive given the flair at his disposal. He, though, insists ‘discipline and efficiency’ get results, not ‘champagne football’.
So, while Wilmots will find room for both Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne in his line-up against Italy in Lyon tonight, they are expected to have to reluctantly flank Romelu Lukaku with Marouane Fellaini in the No.10 role both covet.
This quartet make up a substantial share of the £320m the Belgian squad cost their current clubs, comfortably more than their three rivals in Group E combined, and £130m more than England’s squad - itself the third most expensive.
Such is the talent at his disposal Wilmots has omitted Tottenham’s Nacer Chadli and Everton’s Kevin Mirallas, but would dearly have loved to have been able to include yet another Premier League player, Vincent Kompany.
His absence through injury exposes Belgium’s one weak area, full-back. Such has been the surfeit of central defensive talent Wilmots has deployed Tottenham pairing Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld on the flanks.
With Kompany out Alderweireld is likely to move into the centre but alongside Thomas Vermaelen, the former Arsenal player now with (but rarely playing for) Barcelona. Vertonghen will stay on the left with either Laurent Ciman, who plays for Montreal Impact in MLS, or Jason Denayer, on loan to Galatasaray from Manchester City, at likely right-back.
Wilmots has spent much of his adult life either playing for or coaching the national team but between the two roles he was a politician, serving in the Belgian senate. This interlude was not a success, but his political nous has been instrumental in unifying a squad previously split in line with the divisions in Belgian society, both between Flemish and Walloon, and the indigenous and immigrant communities. The former fissure left Belgium without a government for more than a year but the latter has become more pressing in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.
Like their hosts Belgium have more than football on their minds. The Isis-inspired atrocities were organised in Brussels and featured Belgian nationals. In an untimely reminder a Belgian court on Thursday agreed to the extradition to France of Mohamad Abrini, a suspect in both incidents.
Kompany - a key figure in squad-bonding who has joined the team between media duties - has spoken eloquently of the need for the national team to be a symbol of unity and integration. Kompany hails from Uccle, the same suburb in which Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, went to school. Speaking to CNN he said: “When I was a kid in my neighborhood there was nobody that supported Belgium. It was impossible and unthinkable because nobody could relate to the national team.
Eden Hazard is expected to continue his late bloom of form last season with Chelsea (Getty)
“Today, I walk the streets in Brussels and young kids of Arab origins, Congolese origins, French origin, everyone is happy to wear the colors of Belgium, or most of them at least. I think that's the reason why I'm proud to play for Belgium - because I can take ownership.”
The current squad includes players who have heritage in Congo (Kompany, Lukaku, Benteke), Morocco (Fellaini ), Mali (Moussa Dembele), Iberia (Yannick Ferreira Carrasco), Indonesia (Radja Nainggolan), Kenya (Divock Origi), Martinique (Axel Witsel) and elsewhere. Few play in the domestic Jupiler League. Most, though, are Belgian-born and all are united in a desire to go one step further than Guy Thys’ 1980 vintage when Wilfred van Moer, Jan Ceulemans and Frankie van der Elst took Belgium into a final narrowly lost to Germany.
For this tournament they are based about as far away from Belgium as it is possible to be while remaining in France, training and staying in and around Bordeaux, in the south-west. This is not so much a conscious effort to put distance from the expectation at home, more because Wilmots knows the area, having played for Girondins Bordeaux, and Belgium play the Irish here on Saturday in a tough group that also includes Sweden. First they must seek to repeat the November defeat of Italy, one of the few occasions in recent years they have beat a traditional big nation.
“People will be waiting for Belgium, and waiting for me, (to deliver)," said Hazard, who is captain in Kompany’s absence. At club level this is a familiar experience for him and most of his teammates, but not as a national team. How they cope with that will go a long way to determining whether this is one golden generation that does not prove to be made of pyrite.
The Premier League's first and last places might now be sorted, but there's still a number of issues to be decided as we enter the penultimate gameweek of the ESPN FC Premier Fantasy season.
Two factors need to be considered when picking players for GW37.
The main issue surrounds the eight teams with double fixtures. Their stars should form the rump of your team, but some will be rather more motivated than others, with plenty of sides now playing for little more than pride.
Here's a look at the most attractive options.
TEAM EFFORTS
West Ham are unbeaten in 10 league matches and still have a shot, albeit an outside one, at a Champions League place. They have two home matches in GW37, against Swansea and then Man United.
The latter match will effectively rule one of the two -- maybe both with a draw -- out of a possible fourth-placed finish. Throw in the fact that it will be the last-ever league fixture at the Boleyn Ground, and the Hammers look the best placed to ensure it's not them.
The Swansea fixture should be a home banker -- only the bottom four teams have conceded more away goals than the Swans' 31, and they've shipped 12 in their last four trips.
Aaron Cresswell and Dimitri Payet appear sure-fire fantasy bets.
Aaron Cresswell (£6.5m) has a goal, an assist and a clean sheet from his last four matches, while Mark Noble (£6.7m) is in blistering form, with four goals from his last two starts.
Up front, Andy Carroll (£5.5m) has five goals and an assist in four matches.
Sunderland also have two home matches, against Chelsea and Everton. They're massively motivated, in good form (unbeaten in three) and have kept three clean sheets in their last five outings.
Vito Mannone (£5.7m) and Jan Kirchhoff (£5.9m) offer the best value defensively. The former has made 19 saves in four matches, racking up 25 points from those three clean sheets, while the latter is listed as a defender but is being deployed in midfield.
Patrick Van Aanholt (£6.4m) is costlier, but offers offensive potential as well. He has five goals and three assists for the season and has created three chances and fired in a league-best seven shots over the last four matches.
Jermain Defoe (£7.6m) remains the Black Cats' major attacking threat, but he's struggled at the Stadium of Light all season -- only three of his 14 league goals have come at home.
Man United's double involves trips to Norwich and then West Ham. A top-four finish is still very much on, with the FA Cup final as a pleasant second prize.
They face a Norwich side with the fifth-worst home defensive record and an attacking threat that is only marginally better. The Red Devils have been stealthily going about putting a decent run together, with four wins and a draw from their last six matches, including four clean sheets.
The lack of goals and invention from midfield remains a weakness, so decent points returns remain the preserve of Daley Blind (£6.8m), the club's top-ranked defender, and Anthony Martial (£8.4m), who has two goals in five.
Having scuppered Spurs' title ambitions, it remains to be seen whether Chelsea will have the appetite for further spoiling tactics. Away at Sunderland and then Liverpool, the Blues have kept just one clean sheet in 11 matches, and that was at home to Villa.
Christian Benteke is one player who could play in both games for Liverpool.
As a result, you'd be well advised to look further up the pitch for decent returns, with Willian (£7.1m), who has a goal and an assist from his last two starts, and Cesc Fabregas (£7.6m), with three assists over the same time frame, in the best form.
After that, things get cloudy. Liverpool have two good home fixtures, against Watford and Chelsea, but Jurgen Klopp has chopped and changed his teams hugely over the last few weeks and now that they've reached the Europa League final, he's likely to continue doing just that.
Perhaps the only player likely to get one run-out, and maybe more, is strikerChristian Benteke (£6.3m), who was given 45 minutes in GW36 and scored.
MUST-HAVE MEN
Dmitri Payet (£8.5m) has had to play second fiddle to Mark Noble over the last two matches, but he still has back-to-back assists to his name and is one of only three midfielders to have created more than 100 chances this season. Double fixtures make him too important to ignore.
Eden Hazard (£7.5m) is finally getting back to his best, with three goals in two and a team-leading four shots in the penalty area. All this despite only starting once makes the 6.5 percent-owned Hazard a tasty double gameweek prospect.
Andros Townsend (£6.6m) only has the one match, but it's against Villa. Three goals and two assists from his last six matches points to a man in form and Newcastle simply have to win if they are going to have any chance of not joining Villa in the Championship next season.
A PUNT OR TWO
Norwich need other results to go their way if they're to avoid the drop, but two GW37 home matches, against Man United and Watford, give them at least a semblance of control over their own destiny.
In Nathan Redmond (£4.6m) and Robbie Brady (£5.9m) they also have midfielders with sound points-scoring potential.
Brady is the team's most likely creator -- only Marc Albrighton (268) and Payet (262) have put in more crosses over the season than Brady's 232, and his 25.4 percent success rate betters that of the Leicester man.
He also takes the vast majority of Norwich's corners and free kicks.
Redmond is the club's joint top scorer, with five goals, and returned from injury to put in a solid shift in the 1-0 defeat at Arsenal last week, with his four shots on goal a top-four figure among midfielders.
It's win or bust for Norwich now. Manager Alex Neil has chopped and changed up front over recent weeks, but his midfield duo look nailed-on for starts and offer the chance of low-cost returns.
Eden Hazard has endured two years of contrast at Chelsea after going from top of the pile to barely making the team.
Last season the Belgian was voted Player of the Year by his peers. He scored 17 goals in the league, contributed nine assists, created 101 chances and, unsurprisingly, he was the most fouled player in the league. Almost a year on, Hazard is a shadow of the player he was - scoring only two goals alongside four assists in all competitions it is clear to see Hazard’s influence has waned.
The stats don’t improve the situation either; Hazard has created only 56 chances, his shot accuracy has dropped below 40 percent and he is yet to score in the league.
Hazard has struggled in the final third. Credit: PA
Hazard struggled in the first part of the season alongside almost every single one of his teammates under the guidance of Jose Mourinho. When the Special One was turfed out and for the second time, Guus Hiddink was charged with salvaging Chelsea's and Hazard's season.
The team has improved in the league where they are unbeaten since December. Whilst the performances of Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Oscar have all improved. Chelsea managed a mere 18 goals in 16 games before Mourinho left Stamford Bridge. However after his departure, in 14 games the Blues have netted 24 times. Yet despite this upturn in form Hazard (minus his FA cup double) is still to find the net in the league, in fact he has yet to have a shot on target in ten games since Hiddink’s arrival.
Hazard has shown glimpses of his talents in the cup. Credit: PA
A lack of confidence is hindering the playmaker. Mourinho's relationship with the Belgian seemed strained at times. Firstly, the Portuguese felt Hazard’s calls for the medical team in the final minutes of a 2-2 draw with Swansea were unwarranted. In Mourinho’s final game he spoke about the lack of ‘serial champions’ in his team, a jibe allegedly aimed at Hazard. He shared his doubts on his ability to operate defensively in the No.10 role. And after another injury suffered at Leicester, Mourinho suggested Hazard’s must have 'a serious problem’ this was, however, an indirect suggestion of the former Lille man's lack of commitment.
Hazard’s father, Thierry, suggested the incident wasn’t major, but his body was tired, later going on to suggest he was being forced to play through the pain barrier which has contributed to his lack of form.
Hazard has not been a driving force. Credit: PA
Fatigue is almost inevitable in the Premier League, especially for the likes of Hazard who has played 186 games in the last three years. Until now the Belgian had enjoyed a relatively injury-free career, but with his workload and the fact he has become a marked man by oppositions, his fitness has suffered. Hazard has struggled with persistent hip and groin problems and as his father pointed out that the hectic schedule the club have hasn't allowed Hazard to have a proper recuperation period.
It is not uncommon for some players to experience a lack of hunger. Arsenal’s Per Mertesacker described himself as having a World Cup hangover after lifting the trophy with Germany, saying: “In the first months, it was quite difficult to come down and to forget that feeling of being a World Cup champion. I didn’t play at my best and that was because I hadn’t experienced this feeling before. Sometimes I didn’t know how to handle the situation.”
Hazard ended last season as a Premier League and League Cup winner in what was his most fruitful campaign and he maybe experiencing that same mentality issue as Mertesacker.
Hazard and Jose Mourinho had a tough few months together. Credit: PA
Many pundits and fans alike have compared Hazard to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. But in actuality Hazard, by his own admission, has a different mentality. “I realise that I will never be a true scorer. It's not in me. It is mainly mental...Sometimes I still think, after a goal, 'that's enough’,” Hazard explained.
It’s clear to see Hazard's seemingly lackadaisical attitude may prevent him from ever emulating the world’s best. And certainly this season there is no danger of him outperforming himself.
Hazard's stock has fallen whilst others has grown for example the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alvaro Morata & Kevin De Bruyne. Mourinho last summer said Hazard was not only in the top ten but in the top three players in the world. On current form Hazard is barely in the top ten, making next season a crucial one for the Belgian.
The game is not the top-of-the-table clash you would expect at this stage of the season, but when Premier League leaders Arsenal go head-to-head with reigning champions Chelsea this Sunday, sparks could fly.
It has been six months of contrasting fortunes for the London rivals, with the Gunners looking like real title contenders and the Blues a fading force, virtually guaranteed to miss out on Champions League football next season.
Arsenal are currently 19 points and 13 positions above Chelsea in the league table and a home victory would cement their credentials to become English champions for the first time since 2004.
Mesut Ozil in particular has been in sublime form, providing a league-high 16 assists this term, while a much-improved Olivier Giroud’s 12 goals have been vital to Arsenal’s chances of ending their long wait for a league title.
In contrast, Chelsea's squad look like a shadow of their former selves, with last season's star players Eden Hazard, Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas all under-performing this season.
Jose Mourinho paid the price for the West London side’s failings when he was sacked in December and replaced on an interim basis by Guus Hiddink.
Realistically it will take a miracle for Chelsea to finish in the top four this season, despite slightly improved showings since the managerial change.
The Blues have conceded 34 goals in 2015-16 to date, two more than all of last season, while their usual menace in attack has faded - despite Diego Costa recently showing signs of returning to goalscoring form.
However, although Chelsea’s season is now effectively dead, and Mourinho has departed the Blues’ bench, we will still be in for a tasty clash on Sunday, as games between the teams have a history of conflagration.
Earlier this season the heavyweights met at the Bridge in September, with the Blues winning 2-0 in a bad-tempered clash.
Chelsea striker Diego Costa was guilty of extreme provocation and petulance, resulting in the reaction and subsequent sending off of Arsenal center-half Gabriel, while the Gunners ended up with nine men after Santi Cazorla also saw red.
The players on both sides will surely remember that game, and will be keen to settle scores at the Emirates.
And let’s not forget the infamous incident in October 2014 between then-Chelsea boss Mourinho and Arsenal manager Wenger, when the Gunners’ boss shoved the Portuguese after claiming he was “provoked.”
Mourinho's sacking nullifies the bad feeling on the respective benches, but this remains a real grudge match despite Chelsea’s dramatic dip this season.
Both sides are sweating on the fitness of key players, with Arsenal hoping Ozil and Alexis Sanchez can feature, having recently spent time injured on the sidelines.
Chelsea, meanwhile, should have Costa available despite the striker picking up a shin injury against Everton, while Hazard could also possibly return.
The 19-point gap between the London rivals is the biggest in Arsenal’s favor for 22 years.
Both teams will be desperate for three points in what should be a scintillating clash, with the Gunners surely keen to add to Chelsea’s woes and ensure bragging rights in the capital for Arsenal fans.
Sunday is what is known in the English Premier League as the Super Sunday and this one does not only bring together two big teams in the English League but also the two biggest clubs in London, so it is also the London derby.
The two teams are currently separated by 19 points on the English Premier League table with Arsenal sitting on top of the table while Chelsea struggle to get out of the bottom half of the table.
However, this might be inconsequential on Sunday as the match promises to be a crunch match especially with both teams having rested some players and both teams expecting one or two players back in the team for the match.
The Blues manager Guus Hiddink may not have lost any match since he took over the reins which is a good sign but he has also only been able to win just 2 out of the 6 matches he has led the Blues to and will want to ensure his team does all they can to get a victory against Arsenal on Sunday.
This should therefore be his line-up for Sunday if he hopes to win the match against Arsenal.
Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois will start in between the posts for Chelsea as he is undoubtedly the best the Blues have and will be hoping to at least keep a clean sheet against Arsenal.
Defense
The Chelsea defense has been poor of recent and Hiddink knows he cannot leave them like that against the Gunners attack as they have allowed a whopping 5 goals in just their last two matches and this is just not good enough so Hiddink might have to drop struggling Branislav Ivanovic at right-back and replace him with Cesar Azpilicueta while John Terry will retain his spot in the heart of defense especially after his saving goal against Everton last weekend and will have to be paired with Kurt Zouma who has been doing well with Baba Rahman likely to complete the back four at left-back.
Midfield
Nemanja Matic might be dropped after his poor outing against Everton and Mikel will likely start beside Cesc Fabregas in the centre of the pitch with Oscar playing in front of them at the attacking midfield role.
William will undoubtedly keep his right-wing role while Hazard who is said to be back in training might just be forced to start the match against Arsenal on Sunday as he could very well be the difference in the match. Although, he should not be rushed back but Kenedy might not be good enough for such a match and Pedro is just not in a good form at the moment.
Striker
The sole striking position will be left to none other than Diego Costa. Although he was injured against Everton but there are a few choices available, so he will have to be forced to play with the knock and expect to knock in one or two goals without getting into a fight at least.
