Real Madrid will reportedly offer Gareth Bale to Chelsea as part of their bid to try and land Eden Hazard this summer, according to reports in Spain.
Hazard returned to top form this season to play an influential role in Chelsea’s Premier League title success, but reports of Madrid interest haven’t gone away.
According to Don Balon, their latest plan to prise the Belgian international away from Stamford Bridge involves offering Bale in exchange, but it remains to be seen whether or not that’s a deal that is of interest to Chelsea.
While Hazard has bagged 16 goals and provided seven assists in 40 appearances in all competitions this season, Bale has struggled with injuries this year and has managed just 26 outings with nine goals and five assists.
Those injury problems are seemingly the source of Madrid’s desire to move him on as there have been comparisons made to Arjen Robben and his time in the Spanish capital, but it’s difficult to see why Chelsea would take that gamble themselves at the expense of losing one of their star players.
The situation will of course change if Hazard pushes for a move to the Bernabeu, but for the time being president Florentino Perez’s latest plan doesn’t seem like it has too much of a chance of being successful.
As reported by BBC Sport, Bale was signed for £85m in 2013 from Tottenham, and although he’s collected two Champions League trophies and been an important part of their success since, it hasn’t quite developed into the situation that they hoped for whereby he would be ready to take over from Cristiano Ronaldo as the younger man.
These latest rumours will be of interest to Manchester United though, who as noted in the report are still keen on the Welshman and could try and sign him again this summer but may miss out if Chelsea are ready to do a deal with the La Liga giants involving a swap.