Former Barcelona star Pedro proving to be an asset in Chelsea’s Premier League title bid

After a mediocre start at Stamford Bridge, Spanish winger has become a constant threat to opponents as he has proved in recent times, writes Greg Lea.

Pedro, right, has come into his own at Chelsea. Adrian Dennis / AFP

It was the standout performance of the Premier League season so far and the best Chelsea have mustered since a 6-0 thrashing of Arsenal in March 2014.

Everton were barely even second best during their chastening trip to Stamford Bridge before the recent international break, with Antonio Conte’s men in imperious form as they ran out 5-0 winners in front of their own supporters.

Eden Hazard, 25, was the Chelsea forward who attracted the majority of the plaudits after another magnificent performance against Ronald Koeman’s charges.

The freedom afforded to the Belgium international in Conte’s 3-4-2-1 formation – Hazard starts on the left flank but has the licence to drift all over the final third – has brought out the best in a player who has often struggled to fulfil his defensive duties in the past, with a return of six goals in his last six outings evidence of his productivity at present.

Hazard is not the only Chelsea attacker who has demonstrated a vast improvement following a below-par 2015/16, however.

Numerous Manchester United supporters were left disappointed when their side failed to secure the signature of Pedro last summer, when the Spanish winger opted to join Chelsea from Barcelona instead.

By the end of the season, though, those same fans could be forgiven for expressing relief that the five-time Primera Liga champion had ended up elsewhere, particularly as United would probably not have acquired Anthony Martial had Louis van Gaal landed his first-choice target.

Pedro’s debut season in English football was, all in all, rather underwhelming. Joining a Chelsea outfit on the verge of an astonishing implosion patently did not help matters, but it was not unreasonable to have expected a little more from a player who cost the club £19 million (Dh86.6m).

The Barcelona academy product actually got his Chelsea career off to a brilliant start, starring in a 3-2 defeat of West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns – his first appearance for his second senior side.

Such positive early form could not be sustained, though, and Pedro contributed just four Premier League goals and two assists between August and April.

Pedro, 29, did make a bigger impact in the final few weeks of the season and had already shown signs of improvement from around February onwards, but it was not at all surprising that he began the current campaign as backup to Hazard and Willian.

After starting on the substitutes’ bench in six of Chelsea’s first seven league encounters, he made the most of the opportunity he was afforded when the Brazilian was granted compassionate leave following the death of his mother in October.

A fine display in the 3-0 victory over Leicester City was followed by an even better one in the 4-0 destruction of Manchester United.

His superb showing against Everton was the high point, not only of this term but of Pedro’s time at Chelsea as a whole. He was a constant threat on the right-hand side of a front three which cut the visitors to Stamford Bridge to shreds with their incisive interplay.

Willian, the club’s player of the year in 2015/16, cannot get back into the team as a result.

“The new formation is very good for the team, it’s a great system for us,” Pedro said after the game.

“The manager has been important, he’s very good, a strong guy with character and good ideas. He’s very good for the team.”

After a disappointing debut year, the same can now be said about Pedro.

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Defoe continues to be crucial to Sunderland hopes

It did not take long for Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard to be linked with returns to the Premier League after both players confirmed they were leaving MLS this week.

It remains unlikely that either midfielder will be handed another playing contract in England, with Lampard and Gerrard’s moves to the United States in 2015 widely seen as the end of their careers in top-level European football.

The same presumption was made when another former England international, Jermain Defoe, 34, swapped Tottenham Hotspur for Toronto two years ago.

The striker, then 31, may have been significantly younger than both Lampard (37) and Gerrard (35) when he made his debut on the other side of the Atlantic, but it was still logical to conclude that Defoe’s time in the Premier League was over in February 2014.

The former West Ham United and Portsmouth marksman was back in the division just 10 months later, however, as Sunderland handed him a three-and-a-half-year deal worth £70,000 a week.

Offering such terms to an ageing player who had started only three Premier League matches in the previous 20 months was a major risk and a move which seemed to sum up the perennial strugglers’ short-term thinking and haphazard approach to transfer dealings, but Defoe has proved the doubters wrong since arriving at the Stadium of Light.

While his first 17 appearances in the second half of 2014/15 yielded only four goals, Defoe played a valuable role on the right flank as Dick Advocaat led Sunderland to safety.

Being deployed through the middle by Sam Allardyce the following campaign brought 15 strikes in 33 games and a similar dramatic escape from the drop zone.

Another battle against relegation is looming large this term, with David Moyes’ charges currently second-bottom in the standings.

Only Diego Costa, Sergio Aguero, Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku have found the back of the net more often than Defoe, though, with the forward as important to Sunderland as ever.

From Richard Jolly:

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