Chelsea ‘hold their breath’ as Eden Hazard’s released to the international media hounds

In the day-to-day grind of the Premier League, especially with midweek commitments and travel heaped on top, there’s little time for extracurricular activities. Players are generally focused on training, playing, recovering. Their time and availability are carefully managed, often with a strong view towards PR.

But once the international break hits, a lot of those restrictions are relaxed. As Kristof Terreur points out in his status update about the Hazard situation for HLN, there are no club goons to keep the hungry journalists away. Especially given his status as Belgium’s national team captain, Hazard will be expected to talk. And there will be questions. In fact, he’ll probably be asked more about Real Madrid and Zidane than the national team itself. It probably won’t even be close.

So we got all that to look forward to — and so do Chelsea, who are “holding their breath” to see what Hazard will and will not say. Everybody of course knows the situation, but as long as nothing’s signed, hope can remain that he stays with Chelsea.

Terreur does reassure that Chelsea have not accepted anything just yet — and certainly not the silly £70m (€82m) that The Sun came up with recently — and probably won’t until June. The asking price remains £100m (€115m). But there will be blood. And drama. And talk.