It's been the season of Mo Salah, of that there is very little doubt. However, when you ask Manchester City fans who the best player in the Premier League is, they'll tell you Kevin De Bruyne, and put up a decent argument as to why he should have won Player of the Year.
That's fair enough, and given the season the Belgian had, especially in the first six months when City cantered to the top of the table, you can see why. What is slightly less understandable however is when you ask a Chelsea fan who they think the best player in the Premier League is.
Some may concede that this season, it's been one of their former players – but that's another story for another time. However, many hold the belief that Eden Hazard is the best player in the league, and has just had an off season.
There have been rumours once again linking Hazard with Real Madrid this summer, and should the La Liga side fail to win the Champions League and end up without any silverware while their great rivals possibly go unbeaten in the league, you can expect them to spend heavily – and to some extent, they need to.
Yet to shell out what would be upwards of £100 million on Hazard would be a great mistake for the club. Consider this: Hazard has never hit 20 league goals in a season for Chelsea, and while he's certainly had seasons where he has been pivotal in them winning the Premier League, he's had just as many where managers have needed more from him and where he's arguably thrown his toys out of the pram when things haven't gone his way - we've seen it with Jose Mourinho and now we're seeing it with Antonio Conte.
In fact, there are some who believe Hazard, at the age of 27, has reached his peak. Now, this is no slight on Hazard. He's won enough individual accolades and team ones to show he is a top-class player, but when it comes to asking if he really is one of the absolute best? That's highly debatable, and to get a big money move to a side like Real Madrid and succeed, you have to be the absolute best.
That's why the club seems to have gone off the boil when it comes to Hazard – and his teammate Thibaut Courtois, who had a disaster-class against Barcelona in the Champions League. They want players at the peak of their power, and while De Bruyne and Salah have really shown what they can do this season and had the so-called 'world class breakout season', Hazard has languished.
It seemed as though Hazard was destined to be one of the very best the game had to offer back in the 2010-11 season, when he became the youngest player to win the UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year and was a huge part of the Lille team that won the league and cup double, and he will point to the Young Player of the Year award he won during his second season at Chelsea, and the subsequent league titles and Player of the Year awards to show progression.
Yet in 205 games for the club, he's scored 69 goals – nothing to sniff at by any standard, but consider that in 81 Serie A games (on loan with both Fiorentina and Roma until his permanent move) Salah netted 35 goals – with his last season at Roma producing 15 of these.
2016/17 saw Salah play 31 times for Roma and score 15 goals – Hazard played 36 Premier League games and scored 16 goals – one more than Salah in what was supposed to be a world-class season from Hazard. This season, Salah is of course breaking records left, right and centre, and while Hazard will point to his early season ankle injury, there's far more to it than that.
Bar when he first broke onto the scene with Lille, he's never really been considered a serious threat to Messi or Ronaldo and their decade of dominance when it comes to the Ballon d'Or. Salah is. Neymar and Mbappe may yet be. However, for Hazard at 27 years old, his best may be yet to come, but the probability is Chelsea have themselves a very, very good player – one who can change a game – and that's massive and of course the fans love him and the club want to keep hold of him, but in terms of a player at the very top of the game, that's not Hazard.
It was in the final full season of Jose Mourinho's tenure when Hazard had helped Chelsea to the Premier League title and the manager audaciously compared him to Ronaldo that Chelsea should have cashed in. Then they could have really banked big bucks for the winger, but decided not to – and the rest, as they say, was history for both Mourinho and Hazard.
Which is why Los Blancos are better off biding their time when it comes to Salah and making a mega-money bid for him next summer if he manages to carry on this blistering form next season than they are getting a player who is on the wrong side of 25 and stalling.
The best thing for Hazard to do would be to pen a new deal with Chelsea, win some more silverware and enjoy his legacy of being one of the best players the club have seen. As for winning the Ballon d'Or, Chelsea may see one of their players lift that trophy, but it will be a former one, rather than a current one.
