When Eden Hazard signed for Real Madrid in 2018, Madridistas finally had seen a marquee signing since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. Whilst he may not have been the goal-scorer supreme that Ronaldo is, Los Blancos had bought in a world-leading star.
A little over two years later, the script has certainly not gone how many would have expected. An injury-hit opening season saw the Belgian limited – instead offering flashes of brilliance in between long spells out. The sequel season was meant to be the comeback, Real fans would finally see it all come together. Instead, they were quickly reminded of how the sequel can never be as good as the original, in fact, it was seemingly worse.
At the time of writing, he has missed a total of 47 games for Real Madrid. In a little over two years, he has missed over double the number of games than he did at Chelsea – where he played for eight years.
On paper, Eden Hazard is an elite player. His stats throughout his career have been consistently of a high calibre; there are few players who come close to his ability on the ball. But the game isn’t played on paper, when a player costs in excess of €100 million, expectations will be monumental and need to be met.
At this point, Eden Hazard may be fighting for his future at Real Madrid
Whilst Hazard has certainly shown moments of being capable, it does not justify the outlay spent on him. He can be forgiven to a degree for his injuries, although, he shares the responsibility to fix his own problems.
The Belgian has openly stated he has had issues with his weight, turning up to preseason in states that weren’t ideal – particularly that of Real’s marquee man. Nobody is expecting him to become the obsessive Adonis that is Cristiano Ronaldo, but he is expected to keep a level of professionalism that comes with being at the biggest club in world football. continue reading