SARRI: Eden Hazard Will Return Against Crystal Palace

“Probably he will be able to play for 40 to 45 minutes. So, for us, it is important.”…SARRI

Chelsea forward Eden Hazard will return against Crystal Palace in the English Premier League on Sunday but is unlikely to play the full match, manager Maurizio Sarri said on Friday.

Hazard, the league’s joint-top goalscorer this season with seven goals, has missed the last three matches with a back injury.

“Yesterday (Thursday), he had a large part of the training with the team,” Sarri told reporters at a news conference on Friday at Stamford Bridge.

“But maybe he will not be ready to play for 90 minutes at the moment, because it was his first training for the two weeks.

“Probably he will be able to play for 40 to 45 minutes. So, for us, it is important.”

When pressed on whether Hazard will start the match, Sarri added: “I don’t know, I want to speak with him first.”

Sarri is unbeaten in his first 10 league matches as Chelsea manager and can now match the record held by Frank Clark.

He had taken charge of 11 without defeat with Nottingham Forest at the start of the 1994/1995 campaign.

But the Italian is not getting carried away with the team’s positive run of results.

“I think here I was lucky because my players were able to win without a high level of tactical level,” the Italian coach added.

“I don’t want to think about the record, only to think about the match and to gain points.

“The record is only a consequence of the match. I have to send the message to my players that the match is the only thing that is important.”

(Reuters/NAN)