Chelsea attacker Eden Hazard has said that Tunisia’s need to win helped Belgium secure a comfortable 5-2 friendly in the group stage of the World Cup. The Red Devils had already registered a 3-0 triumph over Panama in the tournament opener and the victory over Tunisia has certainly assured their place at the World Cup finals, barring a miracle of some sort.

Speaking after the game, Hazard was impressed with the overall performance of the team and he most notably praised Romelu Lukaku, who bagged another brace to become the joint top-scorer alongside Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup. He said: “I think the match was easy because we scored after five minutes and we knew Tunisia needed to win and would leave spaces and would be open. Our strength was to counter and move up very quickly.

“This enabled us to score five goals. I think the guy [Lukaku] deserves everything,” he added. “He works hard in training, he’s scoring a lot ofgoals and we are winning games. We are in a good moment playing together, we are stronger when we play together. When we pass to him in front of goal, he never misses.”

Both Hazard and Lukaku are reported to have picked up knocks during the game but Roberto Martinez may nevertheless play them in the final group encounter against England, which should decide the first and second positions in the standings. Unlike Belgium, England had to dig deep to secure a 2-1 win over Tunisia in their opening game but there were a couple of penalty shouts which would have gone their way on a different day. Belgium have never picked up a win over England at the World Cup but they have the opportunity to end this streak when they face each other at the Kaliningrad Stadium on June 28.