Real Madrid may try to tempt Chelsea into selling Eden Hazard this summer by offering them striker Alvaro Morata plus £40m in exchange, with incoming manager Antonio Conte a known fan of the Spain international.
Hazard’s future at Chelsea has come under question over the last 12 months, although the Belgium international insisted that he will stay with the club for at least another season before he departed for the European Championship in France.
The 25-year-old has been heavily linked with Real and has previously stated his desire to play for the 11-time European champions, leading to anger from Chelsea fans who also criticised the midfielder for what they perceived to be a lack of effort when Jose Mourinho was manager of the club at the start of the 2015/16 campaign.
With Real activating Morata’s release fee to re-sign him from Juventus, the club are already looking into the possibility of selling him on immediately for a sizeable profit. After selling Morata to Juventus for £16m in 2014, they will be forced to pay out over £23m to bring him back to Madrid, although that loss will be eradicated by any sale of Morata as he is expected to move clubs for anywhere up to £50m.
According to reports, Real are looking into the possibility of offering Morata, along with a sizeable sum of money in the region of £40m, in return of signing Hazard. Real manager Zinedine Zidane – who took control of the club after Rafa Benitez’s sacking at the start of the year and led the club to Champions League success – is a known fan of Hazard’s and despite his terrible season for Chelsea, he has shown his very best at Euro 2016 to help Belgium into the quarter-finals where they take on Wales.
Chelsea officials hope that Hazard will recapture the form that saw him named the Footballer of the Year in 2014/15, and as such are reluctant to see him leave this summer.
The arrival of new manager Antonio Conte, who will move to England once his duties with Italy at Euro 2016 come to an end, has led them to believe that the club will get the best out of Hazard once again, while he could soon be joined at Stamford Bridge by his Belgium teammate Michy Batshuayi after Chelsea agreed a £3m fee with Marseille to sign the striker, who underwent a medical on Wednesday.
Morata has also attracted interest from Manchester United and Arsenal, but the arrival of Batshuayi, should it be confirmed in the coming days, would suggest that Chelsea will be unwilling to take on another high-profile striker, especially while Diego Costa remains on their books
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