Now Eden Hazard and Diego Costa Must Fire Chelsea into Title Contention

Antonio Conte's chuckle said it all about where he thinks Chelsea stand in the Premier League title race.

The Blues boss was asked whether defeating Southampton 2-0 on Sunday meant his team should be considered as those we can expect to be chasing honours at the end of the season.

He didn’t need words—his laugh was enough to dismiss the notion. For now.

Still, if Eden Hazard and Diego Costa continue performing and scoring like they are, it won't be long before this Chelsea side is firmly in the discussion about possible champions.

Last season feels too raw for us to be trusting Chelsea. Regardless of the changes Conte has made, question marks remain, especially when we consider how the Blues were undone against Liverpool and Arsenal in September.

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Those defeats—especially the manner of their 3-0 loss to the Gunners—showed the soft underbelly remains. Conte has much more to do in order to return Chelsea to the ruthless force they once were. He's still working through the scar tissue, repairing fragile egos in order to restore confidence.

In Hazard and Costa, he has his antidote.

The pair has a combined 13 Premier League goals this term. Costa is leading the top-flight’s scoring charts with eight; if we combine Hazard's total with how he finished 2015/16, his opener at St. Mary's on Sunday puts him on nine goals in 15 league outings since April.

That's 0.6 goals per game—better on average than the scoring form that won the Belgian the individual plaudits and Chelsea the title in 2014/15, when he hit 0.37 goals per game in the league. It's no coincidence this has come about since Conte switched things around, either.

Like Costa, Hazard was impeccable against Southampton. Now playing centrally and not being asked to track runners, he’s thinking about only one thing: damaging opponents and not his own team with his defensive lapses. He has looked a better player all season, but the past month or so has been the greatest leap in terms of him restoring the faith in his ability.

Last year seems like a nightmare, a test of his character he is overcoming.

So it has also proved for Costa, whose strike wasn’t the sort of goal associated with prolific goalscorers. The Premier League’s best frontmen have often performed their business in the penalty box, feasting on mistakes and other scraps. Costa is lethal from anywhere these days.

He scored a sublime effort from the edge of the box against Hull City at the beginning of October, and he finished the month doing something similar on Sunday. Regardless of some comical defending from Southampton, the Spain international's execution was perfect, bending his effort around Fraser Forster.

That goal put Costa on 40 Premier League goals in 64 games since arriving in England in 2014—that’s seven games quicker Sergio Aguero took to reach that number for Manchester City. Not bad for a player who is supposed to be English football’s fall guy, the jester of the court seen more as a benefit to headline writers than his manager.

Well, Costa’s writing the headlines himself. However, they’re of a much more positive tone. Like Hazard.

If we’re to see Chelsea do anything this term, the duo has to keep on keeping on. Four clean sheets in a row in the league is a solid foundation that has whet the appetite for what we might expect from Chelsea now Conte’s firming his grip; it’s the performances of Hazard and Costa that have got the manager salivating, though.

They are special players who are Chelsea’s match-winners. They’re the sort of talents who win teams trophies, similar to what we witnessed in 2014/15, when we were fooled into thinking another era of dominance was upon us west London.

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Chelsea were unstoppable that season. That they led the Premier League for 38 weeks outlined what a formidable unit they were. Teams such as City struggled to keep pace, as the Blues were so efficiently ruthless. As each week was ticked off, victories and points were inevitable. That sort of pressure is hard for rivals to match. It’s a drain knowing mistakes can’t be made, and none of them could compete.

For all the strengths elsewhere, it was what Costa and Hazard were producing that gave the sense of Chelsea being capable of bulldozing their way through teams. No matter how defensive sides were, managers and players knew Chelsea would take something from them eventually.

Even in the title run-in, when Manchester United attempted to shut up shop and restrict Chelsea, Hazard needed just one opportunity to punish the back line, which he did when scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win in April 2015.

With games running out, that victory gave Chelsea a psychological edge on those who thought they may well have a wobble. If we fast-forward to the present, that same effect is beginning to creep back into Chelsea’s performances.

Watching from the sidelines, we’re expecting something again. The momentum is building, and Chelsea are part of the conversation—even if it is a whisper.

For that to get louder, Costa and Hazard have to keep it up.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes.