Chelsea star’s dazzling West Ham performance in numbers

The Premier League has been put on notice. Eden Hazard is back on form.

Chelsea’s star man made a show-stopping start to the new top-flight season at Stamford Bridge on Monday night. The Belgian scored the opening goal in a 2-1 win over West Ham and looked a mightily improved version of the player that floundered through last term.

Signs of a renaissance appeared at the back-end of that campaign and have clearly been picked up under new boss Antonio Conte. Hazard collected the man of the match award from the nice guys at Sky Sports thanks to a dazzling display. Here are his numbers:

5 – The 25-year-old has now scored five goals in his last six Chelsea outings in the Premier League

47 – After waiting 1907 minutes for his first league goal last season, the former Lille star only needed 47 to open his 2016/17 account.

3 – Hazard fired three shots on goal against the Hammers. In his 31 league appearances last term he only equalled or bettered that tally on five occasions.

9 – No player completed more dribbles in the league’s opening set of fixtures than the nine the 25-year-old managed at the Bridge. The next closest tally was six, shared by four players.

55 – Hazard made more passes against Slaven Bilic’s visitors than he averaged across the entire Premier League campaign last season (45.7).

5000 – The penalty he slotted away to give Chelsea the lead over West Ham was the club’s 5000th goal in the top flight.

3rd – He crowned the evening with a delightful quote, spoken entirely in the third person:

Eden Hazard knows how important Eden Hazard can be for Chelsea this season ? pic.twitter.com/YX7JmgVIof

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) August 16, 2016

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