EDEN HAZARD is RETIRING his knee-slide celebration because "they are on fire". The Chelsea superstar pulled off his iconic move after his spectacular late winner against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. 3 Eden Hazard has vowed to retire his knee-slide celebration Credit: Reuters He nutmegged both Roberto Firmino AND Alberto Moreno before firing past Alisson into the net. But the Belgium ace has no plans of repeating the trick should he net in today's Premier League clash against the Reds. Hazard said: "Look, look, the celebration - the sliding knee. I need to stop this. "My knees - they are on fire! No more of this celebration." 3 Eden Hazard performs his iconic knee-slide celebration against Cardiff Credit: Reuters Hazard has been on fire with seven goals in all competitions for club and country. Rather than selfishness, he insists his blistering form is helped by being forced to go alone. Hazard said: "If I see that there is no solution, I go on my own. "So, in my mind, it is just to make the right decision." Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has been so impressed with Hazard's performances this season he believes he can push on to become the best player in the world. The Italian reckons there is still more to come from the forward. 3 Maurizio Sarri believes there is even more to come from Eden Hazard Credit: Reuters Sarri said: "We have seen only 70 per cent, 75 per cent, 80 per cent of his potential. "If he is able to improve, he will be the best in the world." He added: "With more intensity in training. If he is able to improve in training, maybe he will be able to use himself at 100 per cent. "It is very difficult to compare him with other players. He is a genius. He's unique."<doc-sep>Jamie Carragher has been waxing lyrical about Eden Hazard all week. The Chelsea star was in glittering form during the Carabao Cup clash with Liverpool on Wednesday, emerging from the bench to score a stunning individual winner. At the time, Carragher was on commentary and instantly proclaimed that Hazard was the best player in the Premier League, a comment that sparked its fair share of debate on Twitter. It led the Sky Sports pundit to justify his opinion with a lengthly column on the matter with the Telegraph and he certainly put together a strong argument. “Hazard brings something the others do not – dribbling ability, running at pace, beating several men from deep before delivering a spectacular finish,” he explained in the article. Carragher thinks Hazard is the Premier League's best “He has the capacity to make you shout ‘wow’ as I did when he scored the goal that knocked Liverpool out of the Carabao Cup. “We tend to rate such individuals above those other technical players whose forte is wonderful passing or prolific goalscoring. “Whether Hazard accepts a 30 goal target for this season or not, he has the ability to reach it.” Carragher and Gerard's Instagram exchange So, it’s fair to say that Carragher rates the Chelsea man but it may seems a little strange given his allegiances to Liverpool and a certain Mohamed Salah. Save that thought because Carragher took to Instagram to advertise his column on Friday afternoon, once again reiterating that Hazard is the best. It was a post that caught the eye of none other than Rangers manager Steven Gerrard who, of course, gained legendary status at Liverpool alongside Carragher after years of service. And seeing his old teammate proclaim Hazard as the very best just didn’t sit right with him, so he commented: “Salah for me James!” Carragher was prepared, though, and swiftly responded: “thought you’d have gone for Morelos or Lafferty!” Check out the full exchange below: Salah vs Hazard debate Chasing a career in management hasn’t taken Gerrard’s sense of humour, then. Gerrard has kept his loyalties to his old club Liverpool by maintaining that Salah is the Premier League’s finest but based on this season alone, Carragher’s argument stands strongest. Although Salah has still experienced a positive start to the campaign, Hazard has been on a different level with a series of brilliant performances. However, if Salah can rediscover the form that made him so unstoppable in 2017-18 then Gerrard will be sitting smugly come May. It’s certainly an interesting debate amongst football fans and there’s strong arguments on both sides. We’re sure Manchester City will have something to say about it all between now and the end of the season but the more games that pass, the more intriguing the debate will become. Who do you think is the better player - Hazard or Salah? Have your say in the comments section below. News Now - Sport News<doc-sep>Almost all of the world’s problems, from daily irritations to long-term catastrophe models, are caused by people doing things. It’s not hard to trace the line of cause and effect. Growth, progress, reaching out, growing as a person: these are invariably the areas where things start to go awry, distractions from the safety of idleness, entropy and generally not doing much. This is not a new idea. The Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus aren’t really commandments in the active sense. They’re prohibitions, warnings against the ancient menace of doing things. As much as you might want to hold an adulterous ass-coveting party in the house of your recently murdered neighbour, the Bible explicitly forbids all of these activities. And for me, Clive, rightly so. All of which leads naturally on to Eden Hazard, who was brilliant once again for Chelsea in midweek, scoring a winning goal against Liverpool that was both dizzying in its range of skills and also not that surprising for Chelsea fans who watch him a lot. It has become a commonplace this season to declare Hazard the best player in the Premier League right now. It is also probably true. But then Hazard has been the best player in the Premier League for years, just not always the most consistent or the most effective on the numbers, a footballer of unsurpassable skill and technique still in the process of becoming fully himself. Watching him from close to the pitch at Stamford Bridge there has been a temptation to laugh at times at his outrageous skill at taking the ball and turning at speed, legs whirring, chest puffed, scorching left and right at extraordinary angles, like a cartoon mouse whizzing along the skirting board. The only question was why Hazard wasn’t constantly unstoppable, why he didn’t destroy the opposition every week. Instead it has been a process of incremental improvement. To a point where Hazard’s story is now in danger of becoming a narrative of departure. He has become so good that to simply stay where he is would be an aberration, a move to Real Madrid or Barcelona flagged up as a sporting inevitability. Whereas in fact the opposite is true. Hazard is instead the perfect advert for the power of staying, for the virtues of stasis. There has already been some talk this week of a new Chelsea contract and this is to be applauded. Because Hazard tells us something else, that change, the menace of doing things, is not always the best path. Eden Hazard (left) celebrates his stunning winner against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup tie at Anfield. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty Images At Chelsea his highs have been cherished, his troughs forgiven or worried over in private. Development has come from sticking it out, and in part from the challenges posed with each managerial sacking. For now Hazard seems to have found the right man at the right time. Maurizio Sarri is an attacking cavalier, but he is also furiously detailed in what he wants from his attackers, meticulous on things like movement and pressing, this despite mooching around the touchline looking like he’s en route to a six-day fishing trip on a canal off the A40 and it’s an effort of will not to sit on the bench with his special inflatable pillow around his neck. If Hazard’s steady bloom tells us anything it is that the orthodoxies of transfer culture should be resisted, or at least questioned and treated with scepticism. Most sane, disinterested bodies involved in football – plus also Fifa – accept that transfers need to be reformed. What isn’t said enough is that transfers are a menace generally, are consistently disruptive to teams, players and fans. Instead the view has arisen, unchallenged, that the only way to succeed is to acquire constantly, to bolt on chunks of prestressed talent. This has never been the case, and it isn’t the case now. Even among the wealthiest clubs successful teams invariably arise from team-building, perseverance and consistent tactics. Whereas in practice most transfers fail in some form, inhibiting rather than encouraging player development, confusing or degrading the team dynamic at both ends. There are of course plenty of good ones too. But these generally involve a move to a club where these two factors, development and stability, are already in place, players signed as key pieces in a jigsaw. Instead transfers are too often a brutal process, geared towards monetising a player’s status rather than nurturing their talent. Danny Drinkwater went from a perfect fit at the perfect level at Leicester City to his current role as a sad-looking, well-paid man in a blue tracksuit who spends his Saturdays watching other men play football. Renato Sanches has been transformed by the power of the ill-timed big-money move from the most promising hometown talent in Europe to someone who looks like he’s been trying to play football on LSD for the last two years. Hazard’s five years at Chelsea have at least pushed against this a little. He is, by all accounts, a slightly different kind of person, talent without rapacious ambition, and guided by his father rather than an industry super-agent. By staying he has become something else, an emblem of his team, a page in his club’s modern history. And a player who, aged 27, seems to be reaching into the outer fringes of his own talent. It still seems likely Hazard will move on at some point. But his refusal so far is a minor blow in favour of something else, a vote for team-building, for football as something rooted in geographical place; and for the idea that even the rarest talent can be allowed to stay and bloom where it falls.<doc-sep>
Chelsea vs Liverpool: Reds' pressing game key says Burley The Reds face Chelsea for the second time in four days today when they clash at Stamford Bridge (5.30pm). Their Premier League encounter follows a mid-week Carabao Cup tie which the Londoners edged at Anfield with a late 2-1 win. Eden Hazard’s cameo from the bench turned the game in their favour after Liverpool had looked set to progress with quarter-of-an-hour to go. The Belgian produced a moment of sheer brilliance to win the game for the visitors by slaloming through four Liverpool defenders and drilling a fiercely-struck shot beyond Simon Mignolet into the bottom left corner. And Klopp insists he has huge respect for Hazard - who was called the “best player in the Premier League” by Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher after his Anfield strike. Ahead of today’s match in the capital, Klopp said on Hazard and his tactics to try and stop the forward: “You need to be ready and it is more than tough and I have the biggest respect for this player. I love it, what a player, wow! “But it is not to defend alone. Yes, it is difficult, but we have to do all the things around it: close spaces, make passes more difficult. “I think one of our biggest chances on Wednesday came when we won the ball off Hazard. Jurgen Klopp vs Maurizio Sarri will be an intriguing tactical battle Jurgen Klopp is well aware of Eden Hazard's threat Eden Hazard has six goals against Liverpool We will have our chances. Each team has had chances against Chelsea so far. Jurgen Klopp “When Daniel [Sturirdge] hit the crossbar, I think it came from Hendo [Jordan Henderson], a little challenge, winning the ball. “It is about what we do. We have to think about what we're going to do when we have the ball.” Liverpool and Chelsea are set for an intriguing tactical battle between Klopp and Sarri - whose attractive possession-based style of play has made them a potential title candidate. But despite their obvious threats, which they showed in possession in the cup clash, Klopp actually enjoys Chelsea playing a more expansive brand of football because of what it means for his side on the counter attack. “We really love that the other team has a football style and approach, passing or whatever,” Klopp said. “I said before the game on Wednesday I really respect it. The plan is really good. But no plan is perfect unfortunately and I realised that a few times when I thought I had a good one and it didn't work out. “Of course it is completely different. The Chelsea team of the last two years were perfectly organised, good defending on the highest level. Jurgen Klopp is confident his Liverpool team will carve out chances against Chelsea Jurgen Klopp has plenty of admiration for Chelsea counterpart Maurizio Sarri