Hazard Back To His Best?  (Sky Sports)

Ahead of Chelsea's Friday Night Football clash with Liverpool, Whoscored.com check the numbers behind Eden Hazard's return to form.

While bringing in new faces to freshen up Chelsea's squad was a priority for Antonio Conte, getting the best from those who underwhelmed in the previous campaign was always likely to be the Italian's quickest route to success.

There were two players in particular who failed to get close to the standards they set in the Blues' title-winning 2014/15 season. Four games in, Diego Costa is already a third of the way to matching his goal tally for the whole of 2015/16, with his WhoScored.com rating increasing from 7.08 to 7.67.

But while the Spain international's return to form has been a welcome boost to his new head coach, the performances of Eden Hazard have been even more encouraging. The Belgian had a WhoScored.com rating of 7.96 in his PFA Player of the Year-winning 2014/15 campaign, and he appears to be getting back to his very best with a rating of 7.90 at this early stage.

With two goals to his name already - it took him until April last season to open his league account - the 25-year-old's confidence looks restored, which can only be a good thing ahead of the Blues' Friday Night Football clash with Liverpool on Sky Sports. It is a fixture the winger is fond of, having scored more goals against the Reds than any other English opponent (five).

But it's not just his goalscoring that has improved recently, as Conte's role in offering Hazard a new lease of life should not be understated. It appears as though the winger is now playing a with the freedom that players of his ilk require in order to play their own game and restore the confidence that was so diminished in the early months of the previous campaign.

Last season, Jose Mourinho looked to tighten things up in Chelsea's bid to retain the title, and his insistence that all players weigh in defensively, while not unreasonable, certainly had a detrimental effect on certain individuals. Hazard was chief among them, losing his place in the side due to what his former boss perceived as a lack of effort in covering for his full-back.

The fact, then, that Conte has overlooked Cesc Fabregas this season has had no small bearing on the way his side is set up to play. With the cover of both Nemanja Matic - another player who fell out of favour under Mourinho - and the indefatigable N'Golo Kante in central midfield, there is less onus on Chelsea's attacking players to track back and hold their shape. The side appears more fluid than this time last season, with Hazard in particular flourishing as a result.

We saw in 2014/15, when he scored 14 league goals and registered nine assists, that the Belgium international was nigh-on unstoppable when fully fit and, more pertinently, full of confidence. It was a confidence that seemed drained just a few months down the line when the Premier League returned to action, with Hazard's figures for both shots (2.1 to 1.2) and dribbles (4.8 to 2.9) falling substantially.

Now, safe in the knowledge that the back four is being offered greater protection, Hazard's early season figures have risen even further than those of 2014/15.

An average of five successful dribbles per game is unsurprisingly a league high, while four shots per game ranks fifth and is far and away the highest he has recorded in his career. While the latter figure will surely fall, it is a clear indication that Hazard is back to his old self in terms of attempting to effect the game whenever possible.

Though Conte should take some credit, it is worth noting that the signs of a return to form were apparent a while back. The Belgium international appeared at the peak of his powers once more at the tail end of last season. Indeed, a WhoScored.com rating of 8.45 was, by a distance, the highest of any player from April onwards, and Hazard would go on to impress at Euro 2016, scoring once and registering four assists - one more than he managed in the entirety of the 2015/16 league campaign.

Conte, then, need only harness Hazard's growing confidence and he has certainly achieved as much so far. With no European football to contend with and their star man back firing on all cylinders, Chelsea look a real threat to the top of the table once more. The fans that stayed loyal to Hazard throughout will tell you it's exactly where they belong.