Belgium national team manager Marc Wilmots has blasted star players Eden Hazard and Christian Benteke following the narrow 1-0 win over Cyprus in the Euro 2016 qualifying.
Belgium nicked the three points in the closing stages of the game, when Eden Hazard connected with a Dries Mertens cross to give the Red Devils the lead. Belgium are just a point behind Wales in Group B and the two teams are most likely to qualify for the finals in France next season from their group.
Hazard, last year’s Player of the Year in England, has received flak from Chelsea FC fans also for his poor showings in the opening four matches of the Premier League. The 24-year-old has failed to find the net so far this season in the league and his Chelsea FC side have only registered one win out of the four matches.
“Hazard was the worst tonight” – Marc Wilmots
Speaking after the match, Wilmots was quoted by The Telegraph as saying:
“He (Hazard) was the worst tonight.
.
“I thought about substituting him, but in the last 10 minutes he always has the ability to do that. At the World Cup, this was the case.
“I obviously expect more from him, but he will grow as the season progresses.”
“This is the worst team performance I have seen” – Wilmots
Liverpool FC’s A?32m summer recruit Christian Benteke was replaced at half-time by Wilmots for his abysmal display in the first-half. Wilmots went as far as saying that Benteke put in a ‘half-performance’.
The 46-year-old was critical of his team’s performance against Cyprus and labelled the showing as one of the ‘worst team performance’.
“We won two games in a row but this is the worst team performance I have seen and we will try to rectify the issue,”
“But we believed until the end that we would score and managed to get the result we needed.”
Belgium next play Andorra before hosting Israel for the final two fixtures of the qualifying round.