Chelsea star Eden Hazard wants his team to make a “fresh start” as they push to challenge teams for the trophy this season.
Chelsea and the Belgian had a miserable campaign last season as they finished 10th in the league, and Hazard was a shadow of himself compered to what he was two years ago.
Hazard told Sky Sports that he and his team can have a new beginning to the season under Antonio Conte.
Everybody needs to be the same player as two years ago. We tried to find a lot of excuses for why we didn’t play well last season, but we don’t know why. Maybe some players were tired, but we need to be focused and train hard to be ready.
It’s a fresh start. We have one objective together, to do better than last season. We try to forget last season and be ready for the future.
Having finished 10th last season Chelsea is for the first time in 20 years without European football.
Hazard thinks that it could be good for them at the end of the campaign, because they will have more time to recover from games.
It’s the first time since I came here I will not be playing Champions League or Europa League, for us it’s new, but we need to adapt, one game for one week, and we will see how we can do.
We have a lot of rest in the week. For recovery it’s very good, sometimes in the Champions League you travel far and come back late. Sometimes it’s difficult. Now we just have one game and we need to concentrate on this game.
The 25-year-old winger does not expect his role to change to much under the new boss Conte.
I think my role will be almost the same, maybe I will have more freedom, maybe I need to defend more, but the most important thing for me is to get on the ball and score goals and make the difference.
The manager speaks a lot to the players and brings a lot of confidence, because we know last season was not good enough and we are trying for a new dynamic and to start the season well.
Hazard also commented about the two new signings Chelsea have made this summer; N’Golo Kante and Michy Batshuayi.
Kante is a good player, for me it is good because he speaks French. We know he is a fantastic player, he runs a lot and works for the team.
I played with Michy for Belgium. He is still young, he can finish and is very good. He just needs to adapt to English football and he will. He is intelligent and a good player.
