Chelsea’s Eden Hazard has insisted that he was never going to sign for French champions Paris-Saint-Germain despite being heavily linked with them over the summer. Hazard recently signed a new deal which extended his contract to another five and half-years.
Having joined from Lille in the summer of 2012 for a hefty fee of A?32 million, Hazard is enjoying his best season till date at Stamford Bridge having scored nine goals and grabbed five assists in 25 starts in the league in addition to playing a key role in Chelsea’s title challenge along with new signings Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas.
Ahead of Chelsea’s visit to France on Tuesday in the first leg of the knockout stages of the Champions League, the 24-year-old stressed on the fact that all the speculation linking him with PSG came from the media and there was no chance that he was going to leave Stamford Bridge.
“There was never anything in that,” he told Telefoot. “The newspapers talked about it a lot but I knew from the start I would stay at Chelsea.”
The two sides faced each other in the quarter-finals of Europe’s elite competition last season with Chelsea prevailing on away goals having lost the first leg in Paris 3-1.
“I don’t think it was a miracle against them last year,’ he said.”We shouldn’t have lost 3-1 in the first leg and we should have played better on the counterattacks. We made two defensive errors that cost us the game.”
However, he is confident about Chelsea’s chances to progress to the next round: “This year, it’ll be a different encounter. I still follow Ligue 1 and I can see that PSG is in a little bit of trouble, but they have great players who can make the difference. Perhaps wea re the favourites, but you can never tell in football.a
Speaking about his current form this season, he said, “I was criticized for not being decisive enough in the big games. I want to score more and more goals but I think I’ve been playing quite well of late. Last year, there were more pressure on me but we have got many world class players this season.”
Eden Hazard was full of praise for manager Jose Mourinho as he said, “The best things about him is that he lets us express ourselves on the pitch. It takes the pressure off him but he has immense desire to win.”
