Another day, another FPL Dilemma. With both being premium priced midfielders, you expect a high output to warrant your investment in them; and on their day you’ll certainty get that from them.
Eden Hazard (10.0m)
On his day he’s Chelsea’s best player by far. Last season ‘his day’ didn’t come around too often, scoring just 5 and assisting 4 others. Hazard had an excellent Euro 2016 providing 4 assists but it wasn’t enough for the Belgians against Wales in the quarter finals. If we are treated to the Hazard of old then he’s a must. Over his first 3 seasons in the Premier League, he managed an impressive record of 37 goals and 36 assists. Perhaps the best bet with Hazard is to take the ‘wait and see’ approach and take it from there. If he performs like he did last year, he’s 100% not worth the dough. It’s worth a mention that Conte stated in an interview that he has the belief in Hazard to become a world star with the likes of Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar so he clearly rates him highly. In pre-season Conte has adopted a 4-4-2 formation with Hazard playing as a floating centre forward behind Diego Costa. If this continues into the season I believe we will see the Hazard of old as he will gain much more freedom with the likes of Matic and Kante doing the legwork in midfield. As a Chelsea fan myself I’m eager to see if Antonio Conte can bring Hazard back to life and what sort of attacking output we can expect from the Belgian.
Kevin De Bruyne (10.5m)
Last season, when fit, De Bruyne outshone David Silva and that is no mean feat. However with close to 50 million being spent on 2 players that can both play in the same positions as KDB, it makes you question will he be guaranteed a start when everyone is fit? Silva, Sterling, Nolito, Sane, Nasri, Navas and the man himself KDB will all be fighting for the 3 positions behind the striker. You’d have to imagine that on that pecking order it would go as follows; De Bruyne, Silva, Nolito, Sane/Sterling then Nasri and Navas feeding off a few minutes here and there but of course that’s up to Pep, we can only only speculate. There’s no doubt De Bruyne is top class, coming on leaps and bounds since he was deemed surplus to requirements by Mourinho at Chelsea. He’s certainly a player that will be on my FPL shortlist if not in my final draft of 15 players.
Who to pick?
Although both are on many FPL managers’ shortlists, Hazard just edges this FPL dilemma for me. Not only as it looks like Conte will give him a lot more freedom than under Mourinho last season, but by the lack of pre-season game time De Bruyne has received. Yes this is down to a hard Euro 2016 campaign but will he be fit enough to start the campaign after his extended break period? I don’t think so. Hazard looks to have continued his impressive Euro form into pre-season scoring 2 goals against Real Madrid off the bench playing in that more advanced role as previously talked about and that’s why he gets the nudge from me.
Written by FPL Avids (@FPLAvids)
