£135 million superstar agrees to join Real Madrid, Barcelona to sell Coutinho to fund move for €180 million superstar and more: Transfer Roundup, 10 January 2019

By Shambhu Ajith

Modified May 02, 2019 05:44 GMT

Chelsea to launch £72 million bid for Asensio as Hazard agrees to Real Madrid transfer

Hazard has openly flirted with Real Madrid on a number of occasions

Chelsea are growing more and more resigned to the fact that they can't stand in the way of an inevitable Eden Hazard departure. The talismanic Belgian has already agreed personal terms with Real Madrid, as reported by Don Balon.

Consequently, Chelsea are preparing a £72 million bid for Real Madrid's Marco Asensio. With the Blues already struggling to find goals, the loss of Eden Hazard could prove to be a fatal blow.

Therefore, it is imperative that they find a worthy replacement and Asensio is someone the Chelsea top brass considers a player with the potential to emulate Hazard's heroics at Stamford Bridge.

Asensio has struggled at Real Madrid this season very much like most of his teammates following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo and hasn't seen a lot of game time of late.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Nishant Jayaram