I want to keep Hazard: Sarri

Football News: Former Napoli manager wants to keep the Belgium international and he is eager to work with him at Chelsea.

Maurizio Sarri wants to keep the iconic star at Stamford Bridge.

This season the 27-year-old has been linked with a move away from the EPL giants to Spanish giants Real Madrid to replace the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo who has joined Serie A this season, but the Italian mastermind says he has Hazard very much in his plans.

The former Napoli manager compares the Chelsea man to one of his compatriot Dries Martens who has been a star performer for Napoli under Maurizio Sarri.

Sarri voiced: "Hazard is a very high level player and I think one of the top two or three European players,"

"I hope that I will manage to improve him. This is very difficult given he has reached a very high level.

"With Mertens it's different. Dries had always been an external striker. Everybody thinks that by necessity he reached a very high level.

"But we are talking about two very high level players. Dries started from lower level. I hope I will improve Hazard too but this is difficult."

The Blues has asked the Italian the move away from players who have been linked with the other clubs if he wants to keep them or not, the Italian made it clear that the big guns are not on his mind.

On this Saturday he replaced Antonio Conte at Chelsea and started his work with the players at Cobham training ground.