If Graham Potter was to ask Chelsea fans who their dream forward signing would be, a few names would crop up plenty of times.
Christopher Nkunku would be mentioned - football.london understands he has a pre-agreement to join the club next summer, as would Dusan Vlahovic and Raphael Leao. Then there would be some that want to bring Eden Hazard back.
The winger is constantly linked with a return to the club he left three seasons ago. Under Frank Lampard they hoped he could add some experience and spark to a new look attack, and when Thomas Tuchel came in those calls got even stronger as the forwards failed and Hazard struggled in Madrid.
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At 31, Hazard is still two years younger than Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and is the same age as Kalidou Koulibaly - who just signed a four year contract with the club. The issue is his massive lack of football and his injury record. He has played just 51 league matches across three full seasons in La Liga, missing 72 games over that period.
His only start of this season came against Celtic on the first night on the Champions League group stage, he has played only 100 minutes in the rest of the games combined, being an unused sub in six matches. The dream of ever bringing him back to Stamford Bridge looks less and less likely. With two years left on his contract Chelsea are unlikely to want to pay a transfer fee for him but Madrid won't want to lose out on an asset that cost them £100m.
His immediate future doesn't look too positive either. With Rodrygo, Vinicius Jr, Karim Benzema, Fede Valverde and Marco Asensio all ahead of him, the prospect of building up match sharpness isn't promising, and manager Carlo Ancelotti spoke ahead of the group stage meeting with Shakhtar Donetsk, saying: "He knows the situation very well, every player understands his situation very well: there’s lot of competition here."
Potter is new to Chelsea, he joined Brighton the same summer Hazard left so may not be aware of the love still felt for the winger, but all he would have to do is go on social media and he would see desperate hope that Hazard one day comes back to Chelsea.
Some fans on Twitter were asking Hazard "to come back home" and others pleaded with the former Blues boss to "free my boy" on Tuesday. Others dreamed of the team Potter could create: "Todd Boelhy just bring Hazard back please, imagine having the combination of Hazard and Kante and Kovacic in the midfield." The issue with that is also the fitness worries for Kante and Kovacic as well as Hazard.
One fan believed Hazard could go on to come to Chelsea like Aubameyang did despite being in his 30s. Ultimately, fans just want Hazard to be back to his best and nobody is benefiting from him being on the bench. It may not be in Potter's best interest to bring him to SW6 now, but Chelsea fans won't give up on the dream.
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