Maurizio
Sarri said on Friday that he is confident Eden Hazard will put pen to paper on
a new deal with Chelsea after N'Golo Kante signed a five-year contract with the
Blues. Hazard's deal with Chelsea runs until June 2020 and speculation over his
future at the club has intensified since his impressive displays for Belgium at
the FIFA World Cup
in Russia.
The
Belgian has said he is in a quandary about whether to extend his deal or seek a
"dream" move to Real Madrid, but Sarri is optimistic his star player
will stay in London.
"I don't know the evolution of the new contract. I think we can do (an
extension)," said Sarri.
Asked
if he was optimistic Hazard would commit to Chelsea, Sarri added: "I hope
so."
Despite Chelsea's impressive run of
eight wins , four draws and one lose
from their opening 13 matches, Sarri
says leaders City are the runaway favourites to win the title and Liverpool the
only side likely to challenge them, leaving his side in a tough battle for the
remaining Champions League places.
"At
the moment in the Premier League there is a team above the others and this team
is Manchester City," said Sarri, whose side trail the champions by seven points.
"Then
there is a very good team, Liverpool. For sure Liverpool will be in the first
four positions.
"Then
there is four, five teams who will have to fight for the Champions League
positions: Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, (Manchester) United and somebody else.
Usually there is a surprise."
In
order to maintain their spot in the top four, Sarri says Chelsea need to be
more aggressive from the start of matches, revealing his unhappiness with a
"mental problem" in the past three games that has seen them drop
points at home to Everton just before the international break and scrape past
Crystal Palace the week before.
"The
problem was that the opponents were more aggressive, more determined than
us," he said.
"It's
not a tactical problem, it's not a physical problem. We have to approach the
match in a different way, for application and determination."
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