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Football London
Football London
Sport
Kieran King

Marina Granovskaia's £130m Chelsea transfer masterstroke proven again amid Eden Hazard update

It's safe to say that Eden Hazard's time at Real Madrid hasn't gone perfectly so far, and he suffered yet another setback on Thursday night.

The 30-year-old looked back to his best for Belgium in their Nations League semi-final against France before he had to go off mid-way through the second-half.

In actual fact, it was confirmed that Hazard has suffered a new hamstring injury which could see him miss El Clasico in two weeks' time.

During his career in Madrid, Hazard is yet to feature against Barcelona. He has missed the last four meetings and he may be set to sit out a fifth.

This will have frustrated the forward, who has been fit for most of the season, but this latest issue further proves how Chelsea managed to get the best out of him.

Since Marina Granovskaia sold Hazard in 2019, he has subsequently missed 57 games, which is more than he's actually played (51) in a Madrid shirt.

In comparison to when he was at Chelsea, the Belgian sat out just 18 matches through injury and never missed a sustained amount of minutes.

To put that into context, Hazard was at the Blues for seven years, appearing over 350 times and played a pivotal role in winning the Premier League twice.

It could be argued that he was, at one point, one of the world's best players having earned the PFA Players' Player of the Year once whilst being named in the Team of the Year on four occasions.

Most importantly, Hazard's goals proved to be important in the two title triumphs and the four other major honours he lifted at the club as he ended up scoring 110 times, with 21 coming in his final season.

There was some annoyance when he was sold to Madrid, but his injury record since leaving could show that Granovskaia's plan to sell has now been proven right.

They also managed to get a club-record fee, which was a considerable amount more than the £32million they paid Lille in 2012 to initially sign Hazard.

Although he has been unfortunate with the number of problems he's had, it has been argued that it was a brilliant piece of business from the Chelsea board.

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