The only thing is that we'll be more balanced if Hazard goes.

That being said, we won't find someone better than him.

On the flipside i do think we overrate Hazard because he's literally our only creative attacking outlet. The board have spent £200m+ on dross in previous transfer windows and still not found players who are genuine attacking threats. It looks like we will go into next season in the same situation too as they have pinned hopes on a 20 year old Pulisic to be that guy. 

We don't overrate Hazard, he is actually among the top 5 best players in the world.

38 minutes ago, JMaher94 said:

The only thing is that we'll be more balanced if Hazard goes.

That being said, we won't find someone better than him.

Right on, we won't find someone better than him regardless. Sell him now, stock up some money and refresh once the ban is lifted. There will be nobody we can buy to direct replace him even if we weren't banned from incoming transfers. 

4 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Our results without Hazard playing any minutes on the pitch this season :

1-0, 2-1, 3-1, 4-0, 3-2, 4-0, 2-2, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0

Played 10 Won 9 Drawn 1 Lost 0 For 28 Against 6.

Granted it's mostly the weaker teams in the Cups but even so, it does suggest that there will be life after Hazard, should he up sticks to Madrid ...

 

Yes, as a mid table Premier League team.

If Hazard leaves next season, and I think he will, and we can't bring in any quality around his level because of the transfer ban, then I wouldn't be at all surprised if we finished mid table next season.

Hudson-Odoi, Pulisic, Willian, Pedro, Abraham, Batshuayi...........It's not good enough, nowhere near it.

This combined with the rest of the squad and Sarri's tactical approach, I just don't see how we will be at all competitive next season.

 

57 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

100mill would be good business. I just hope we do this deal very soon so we can focus on the remainder of the season.

Am sure Eden will give his best to end on a high note.

And  I am happy with Pulisic, CHO, Pedro and Willian for a season. 

You would need to sell one of Willian/Pedro to get CHO to sign a contract, and knowing Sarri he will keep on starting the former 2. 

1 hour ago, JMaher94 said:

The only thing is that we'll be more balanced if Hazard goes.

That being said, we won't find someone better than him.

BIB, I doubt very much we'll find anyone better than him any time soon. I wonder though, how many on this forum think he's better than any player our rivals have? Because if he is better than anyone City or Liverpool have, that makes me feel much better, they don't seem to need a superstar like Hazard to be comfortably better than us, so maybe without him we'll be on par with them............ Transfer ban permitting of course.

I am convinced Sarri will go for Willian and Pulisic/Pedro on the wing next season if Hazard leave and we can't replace him.

CHO have started zero games and have played 100 minutes over 30 league games. So there is very little to suggest Sarri intend to use him properly next season.

I actually don't think he stays if Bayern comes back for him. He clearly has not intention to extend so we may very well lose both him and Hazard this summer.

1 hour ago, enigma said:

On the flipside i do think we overrate Hazard 

We don’t, he’s just that good.

Will be a massive loss for us if he goes and the first player to leave us during their prime during the Roman era.

I don't buy that him leaving wont matter too much....

he has gotten the team out of jail so many times, he won the FA cup last year, got the last second winner on Sunday, I could fill up the page if I wanted to with more examples. The club wont be able to turn down a 100 mill Euros and wont be able to sign a replacement.

As for CHO if they come back in for him for 35 mill cant see that offer being spurned either, he looks good in EL but didn't do anything of merit on Sunday. He wont want to stay to warm the bench again either , and were always told Chelsea don't want to keep players who are unhappy being there.

As for Sarri, well hes a shoe in to stay now, what class manager will come in with hands tied behind his back in the market, only an extremely well paid one !

Lets hope the club is still of interest to a buyer, otherwise there may be no end to it.

Yes, as a mid table Premier League team.
If Hazard leaves next season, and I think he will, and we can't bring in any quality around his level because of the transfer ban, then I wouldn't be at all surprised if we finished mid table next season.
Hudson-Odoi, Pulisic, Willian, Pedro, Abraham, Batshuayi...........It's not good enough, nowhere near it.
This combined with the rest of the squad and Sarri's tactical approach, I just don't see how we will be at all competitive next season.
 

We will be really boring to watch next season without Hazard if Sarri is still here. And lots of teams will love to play us every week. Everyone already know we like to pass the ball around aimlessly.

39 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

We don’t, he’s just that good.

Will be a massive loss for us if he goes and the first player to leave us during their prime during the Roman era.

If anything, I think Chelsea fans underrate Hazard. Every so often throughout the season, he will get massive amounts of criticism from certain fans. Last season, Hazard started the season in really good form and had a dip at the mid way point. He got so much criticism during that period and he's had a bit of that criticism again this season to a lesser extent. When Hazard's form dips, the whole teams form nose dives. It happens pretty much every time. Doesn't that say a lot about Chelsea and Hazard? We are too reliant on him and when he's good, he's so good that he lifts the whole team and has us looking like world beaters.

This is why I am always bemused when Hazard gets criticised for a slight dip in form. It's not him we should be criticising, it's the rest of the squad for not stepping up when he can't. If we look poor when Hazard's form dips, imagine how poor we are going to be when he's not in the squad at all anymore. 

When Hazard was off form, who stepped up and stopped us finishing mid table in 2016? Nobody. When Hazard lost form last season, who stepped up and helped us achieve a top 4 finish? Nobody. When Hazard isn't playing at his best this season, who has stepped up to get us out of trouble? Nobody. It's always on Hazard, even when we have won the league with him, our form dipped when his form dipped. We had to drag ourselves over the line and grind it out. 

Hazard has such a huge influence on the form of this team, probably more than I have ever seen for any other top Premier League club. If he was playing with Lampard, Terry, and Drogba at their peak, people would barely notice his dip in form because we would have other players in the squad who could reach the same level as him. Half of Drogba's career was full of average seasons, but he had others around him that would step up. If he played for this current Chelsea squad, people would be saying "Drogba is overrated"

If he does go , and I hope he doesn't we would be a bang average mid table team.

 

If he does go , and I hope he doesn't we would be a bang average mid table team.

 

 

1 minute ago, the real shed end said:

If he does go , and I hope he doesn't we would be a bang average mid table team.

 

Yes but we have to start again from somewhere and being a mid table team with a few potential world class players isn't the worst thing in the world. We do have the young talent that could turn out to be a great new generation if given a chance to play games for that 1 season where it would be acceptable to have a mid table finish.

1 minute ago, the real shed end said:

If he does go , and I hope he doesn't we would be a bang average mid table team.

 

Yes but we have to start again from somewhere and being a mid table team with a few potential world class players isn't the worst thing in the world. We do have the young talent that could turn out to be a great new generation if given a chance to play games for that 1 season where it would be acceptable to have a mid table finish.

1 minute ago, Gol15 said:

Yes but we have to start again from somewhere and being a mid table team with a few potential world class players isn't the worst thing in the world. We do have the young talent that could turn out to be a great new generation if given a chance to play games for that 1 season where it would be acceptable to have a mid table finish.

Not that far off is it when we were the best team in the league not long ago.

We may very well finish fifth or sixth for the second season in a row and if our fears come through and we have an even worse one next season we could very well be in big trouble.

4 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Not that far off is it when we were the best team in the league not long ago.

We may very well finish fifth or sixth for the second season in a row and if our fears come through and we have an even worse one next season we could very well be in big trouble.

Being in big trouble yes but in theory it wouldn't need to last at all. The last time we had no games in Europe we destroyed the league (though I'm sure Sarri can't replicate that kind of overachievement).

I think all things considered we need 2 years of being outside of the trophy winning teams in order to come back to the top with a new generation of players. That's also the max amount of time I would give to Sarri before sacking him.

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

Not that far off is it when we were the best team in the league not long ago.

We may very well finish fifth or sixth for the second season in a row and if our fears come through and we have an even worse one next season we could very well be in big trouble.

As Gol said we were not in Europe last time we won the league, the crucial factor was Conte surprised the league by going three at the back so successfully half the league tried it too less successfully.

The following season certain teams worked out how to combat our three at the back and 5th was the result with Morata losing the plot in the 2d half of the season.

4 hours ago, wallosh said:

6 hours ago, enigma said:

On the flipside i do think we overrate Hazard because he's literally our only creative attacking outlet. The board have spent £200m+ on dross in previous transfer windows and still not found players who are genuine attacking threats. It looks like we will go into next season in the same situation too as they have pinned hopes on a 20 year old Pulisic to be that guy. 

We don't overrate Hazard, he is actually among the top 5 best players in the world.

I would put all these players ahead of him tbh. Neymar, Ronaldo, Messi, Lewandowski, Kane, Suarez, De Bruyne, Aguero, Icardi, Sterling.

I suppose you could throw Son, Salah, Mane, Firmino, Eriksen, Silva, Modric, Kroos, Bale and Pogba etc in there too depending on what you are looking at specifically from an elite player whether goals or creative outlet. 

Edited March 12, 20197 yr by enigma

4 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

We don’t, he’s just that good.

Will be a massive loss for us if he goes and the first player to leave us during their prime during the Roman era.

I'm all for keeping him, but feel we have had his best years too. 

I reckon that if you put Hazard in a City or a Barca and you see a whole other level from him. I guess that's the difference between him and Ronaldo though. We'd be at least second in the table with a 28 year old Ronaldo whereas I believe Eden needs a top team around him for him to be the best in the world. But whatever Eden is, we're going to miss him like we've never missed a player before.

37 minutes ago, enigma said:

No he isn't lol. He's barely top 10. 

Name 9 players better than Hazard.

With the ball he is also better than Ronaldo, the difference is off the ball. 

.

 

 

Edited March 12, 20197 yr by JMaher94

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Name 9 players better than Hazard.

You can't. Only Messi and Ronaldo are better.

Neymar and KDB are on the same level as Eden but he outplayed both of them at the World Cup. Hazard deserved to win POTT.