Cristiano Ronaldo seals mega-move to Juventus; what does it mean for Chelsea and Hazard?

The day has arrived. Juventus and Real Madrid have agreed a transfer for Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the two-best if not the best, footballers on the planet for a massive £105m. No matter which way you would like to look at it, this surely doesn’t mean good things for Eden Hazard’s future from Chelsea’s perspective.

There we have it. That’s the end of Cristiano Ronaldo’s time with Real Madrid, a stint which started back in 2009 when Manchester United sold the Portuguese to Real Madrid for, then a world record, £80m. At Manchester United, he won three Premier League titles, one Champions League, one FA Cup, two Football League Cups, one Community Shield, one Club World Cup and one Ballon d’Or.

Since then, Cristiano Ronaldo has gone on to win 15 trophies, including two La Liga titles, two Copas del Rey, four UEFA Champions League titles (including an unprecedented three consecutive Champions League titles in the last three seasons), two UEFA Super Cups, three FIFA Club World Cups and four Ballon d’Ors. He is also Real’s all time top goalscorer, scoring a massive 450 goals in 438 appearances which includes a record 34 La Liga hat-tricks.

Such is the man’s impact that Real Madrid would have to buy a world class player, if not more, just to replace him. Unfortunately, one such player who could be targeted by Real Madrid is our very own Eden Hazard.

Eden Hazard has been linked with a move to Real Madrid almost every summer for years now. For one reason or another, it never materialized.

However, Eden is 27 years old and has two years left on his contract. If he is to move to Madrid, it has to be now or never as another contract extension with Chelsea would most likely run into his 30s and that would most probably lead to Real looking at other targets.

Thus, if Florentino Perez comes calling, it can be expected that Hazard would want to move and that’s where Chelsea’s problems begin. The Blues are undergoing yet another transition with Maurizio Sarri set to replace Antonio Conte as the first-team head coach.

Adding on to that is the fact that we failed to qualify for this year’s Champions League, thus, filling an Eden Hazard sized hole in such circumstances is going to be next to impossible and will most likely result in failure as there is less than a month to go before Premier League’s transfer window ends (9th of August).

The general narrative for now has been that Eden Hazard isn’t Real Madrid’s first choice to replace Ronaldo. PSG star Kylian Mbappe and Olympic diver Neymar are ahead of Hazard in Real’s list but if Barcelona’s futile purchase of Marco Verratti over the years has taught us anything, it’s that PSG does not budge and sell.

PSG’s stance on such matters would most likely result in Real turning their attention elsewhere and that would most likely be Eden Hazard. Chelsea’s stance in recent years has been the exact opposite of PSG, such as in cases like Juan Mata and Nemanja Matic, where if a player wants to leave, we do not stand in his way.

Thus if Hazard indeed gets his head turned by Madrid’s interest, he may actually end up leaving.

The stakes have been raised. We need to wake up out of our slumber and do well in this transfer window. Considering how one of the prerequisites for Hazard staying was that Chelsea should sign great players and strengthen themselves in the transfer market, we need to do just that in order to guarantee that our talisman stays.

The time is now. The stage is set. Time to get to business.