Eden Hazard has been named the EA Sports Player of the Month for October, with the award handed over by schoolchildren at a Chelsea Foundation event.
Hazard’s brilliant form last month, which included goals in impressive victories against Leicester City, Manchester United and Southampton, have earned him the Premier League’s monthly player prize for the first time.
Antonio Conte has been named Barclays Manager of the Month.
“It means a lot,” Hazard said. “We played a very good month. I scored a lot of goals and all the team played well. We scored a lot of goals and we didn’t concede a goal. I’m the best player this month but the most important thing is at the end to win the league and to do that we have a lot of things to do from now until then.”
Hazard is the first Chelsea player to win it since Diego Costa in August 2014, just reward for his outstanding recent performances.
Chelsea manager, Antonio Conte, was named October’s Barclays Manager of the Month after overseeing a tremendous run of form from his side in which we took maximum points throughout the month without conceding a goal.
Conte can take a lot of credit for the team’s improvement having opted to change formation in the wake of a couple of disappointing results in September.
Having experimented with a 3-4-3 system during the later stages of the team’s defeat at Arsenal, the formation was implemented from the start of a game for the first time in the 2-0 away win at Hull last month.
Conte, who was named Serie A Coach of the Year three consecutive times during his spell at Juventus, was delighted to pick up his first individual accolade in England, and he dedicated the award to his team.
“This is the first time I’ve won the award, it’s a great honour and I want to share it with my players and the club,” Conte told the official Chelsea website.
“It’s now important we continue and maintain our form. After an international break it’s not easy to restart but we must follow our way and work very hard.
“Our next game is against Middlesbrough on Sunday, we know they are really strong and it will be a tough game, but we have prepared very well.”
