{"id":1587,"date":"2014-02-08T17:32:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T17:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=1587"},"modified":"2014-02-08T17:32:08","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T17:32:08","slug":"hazards-hat-trick-inspires-chelsea-to-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/hazards-hat-trick-inspires-chelsea-to-the-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Hazard&#8217;s Hat-Trick Inspires Chelsea To The Top"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eden Hazard&#8217;s hat-trick was all Chelsea needed to go to the top of the Premier League in a season that is looking very unpredictable as Arsenal and Manchester City dropped valuable points.\n<p>The Belgium international was in hot form as Newcastle failed to control the in-form winger as Chelsea completed a good week with another three points after their win over title rivals City on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>Hazard put Chelsea in firm control with two fine first-half strikes before completing his treble from the penalty spot in the second half as Newcastle slumped to a second 3-0 defeat in a week.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea took the lead as Hazard found Branislav Ivanovic out wide on the right and he crossed for the Belgian to sweep home a first-time shot past Krul.<\/p>\n<p>Newcastle wasted a great opportunity to draw level on 33 minutes when Moussa Sissoko broke the Chelsea offside trap to latch onto Davide Santon&#8217;s pass, but the midfielder&#8217;s first touch let him down and Cech was quickly off his line to block.<\/p>\n<p>The visitors were made to pay for that miss as seconds later Chelsea swept straight up the other end and Hazard doubled their advantage with a superb effort.<\/p>\n<p>Willian started off the counter attack, playing the ball out to Hazard and he fed Eto&#8217;o who returned the ball with a brilliant round-the-corner flick and the in-form Belgian slotted his shot past Krul.<\/p>\n<p>With the result, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho may now fancy giving the tittle a real go after the Portuguese had repeatedly said the Blues were not favorurites this season.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Eden Hazard&#8217;s hat-trick was all Chelsea needed to go to the top of the Premier League in a season that is looking very unpredictable as Arsenal and Manchester City dropped valuable points. The Belgium international was in hot form as Newcastle failed to control the in-form winger as Chelsea completed a good week with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1590,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions\/1590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}