If last night's incident at the Liberty Stadium wasn't odd enough to watch, today I find myself agreeing with Pat Nevin - now that is odd. I went to bed thinking about Eden Hazard's alleged kick on the Swansea ball-boy and I was greeted with the same thoughts this morning as I made my customary cycle through the news channels. I'll say at the outset of this post that I'm on Hazard's side. This is mostly down to the fact I'm a Chelsea fan but that's not the only reason - I would probably be on the side of most footballers in this situation. The main reason why I feel very strongly about this is because of the reaction and the type of person that the boy (although at 17 he would have to pay an adult fare on my local bus) portrayed himself as.
Firstly, let me explain why I agree with Nevin. I don't particularly like the guy; in fact, I find him to be a particularly annoying pundit. It should also be noted, for those less aware of football in general, that Nevin is himself of the Chelsea fraternity - maybe take what he says with a pinch of salt. Here's what he said:
Yes he's got a slightly annoying, whiny voice but what the basic part of what he said is true. The boy shouldn't have been rolling around on the ground. Hazard did not try and kick the guy (he's all grown up now) who was meant to be doing the simple job of returning the ball the goalkeeper. I heard a football agent's view on this earlier who first of all noted that at 17 you shouldn't be a ball-boy. After all, ball-man sounds just wrong. Secondly, he said that it shouldn't be up to him to make the decision to time-waste in such a game. Granted Chelsea were getting nowhere, but Hazard wanted to keep pushing and, as a Chelsea fan, I can only commend him for that. In fact it might have been a breath of fresh air if the whole team had showed a little bit of fight last night.
I got side-tracked with a dig at my team's poor performance last night but I'll quickly sum up what I'm trying to argue here because I need to get on with something else. Hazard shouldn't have got himself involved - that's a given - but he did and so what happened is a reality. Yes, he should get a 3 game ban for violent conduct; if he'd kicked a Swansea player then I wouldn't expect anything less. However, the ball-boy acted disgracefully and I don't have any qualms about sticking up for Hazard who has received more bad press this morning than David Cameron has since his speech on Europe over a day ago. Pretty impressive for someone who was just trying to do his job - Hazard that is, not Cameron. Also, a note on the ages of the two involved. As I've noted, the ball-boy is 17. Hazard himself is only 22 - only a year or two older than me. It's not like he kicked a 10 year old now is it?
Sorry this post was brief and biased and everything that is wrong about the Internet culture but I've got to get away and I just had to get that off of my finger tips before I exploded!
Thanks for reading,
Martin
