Eden Hazard, Real Madrid status quo maintained

An update from HLN journalists Kristof Terreur on Sky Sports’ The Transfer Talk podcast regarding Eden Hazard’s current situation ... which sounds an awful lot like the situation as it was last week, last month, at the start of the season.

“For him it is simple. It’s either staying at Chelsea or going to Real Madrid. [...] He is currently happy in London, his kids are happy in London, his wife is happy in London and if the dream move to Real Madrid doesn’t come off, he will stay at Chelsea and sign a contract for life.”

While Terreur “thinks” Hazard will still push for a move despite not really putting his non-anguinous heart into it before and despite his family’s happiness in their current surroundings, he admits that Real Madrid have shown very little inclination to actually follow through their absolute minimum effort of lifting a finger last summer.

“He has rejected two contract offers so far and says that he doesn’t want to sign right now. That means he is waiting for something and that something means just one thing, Real Madrid.

“Real Madrid are still interested as far as I know, but they are still yet to make their move. They don’t have a personal agreement with him at this point, they don’t have an agreement with Chelsea and they haven’t even made the phone call like they did last summer. When they called last summer, Marina Granovskaia said that he wasn’t for sale and Real respected that. But they might come back in again as they need to strengthen their squad after this season and it is easier to get players with just over a year left on a contract.”

-source: Sky

Hazard’s having arguably his best, most productive season yet, but Real opted to go for younger players last summer and that trend just might continue, especially if Chelsea stand firm on our supposed £100m minimum asking price for the first player this season to reach 10 goals and 10 assists in the Premier League (and the first Chelsea player to do so since Juan Mata in 2012-13).

Chelsea will probably want to get younger at the position as well in the next transfer window or two, but that should involve departures for Willian and Pedro, both over 30, instead (with Pulisic already confirmed as arriving and hopefully Hudson-Odoi staying as well).