Eden Hazard believes Mohamed Salah wasn’t afforded the time or opportunity to settle in and thrive at Chelsea back in 2014.
The Liverpool winger has taken the Premier League by storm since arriving at Anfield in the summer but had initially joined Chelsea in January 2014 for £11 million only to be confined to the fringes of the first team under Jose Mourinho.
Hazard however, was hugely impressed with the Egyptian and is even more so now after his start at Liverpool.
“He is still my friend and we are still in contact,” said Hazard. “He’s a top, top, top player. He did not get his chance at Chelsea – maybe because of the manager, because of the other players? I don’t know.
“He has quality but in that period I remember we had me, Willian, Oscar, so for him it was not easy. But he’s a top player, for sure, and we know as a team the quality he has. He is a fantastic striker and this season he has scored a lot of goals. It is always good to play against a friend but Liverpool is not only about Salah. They have a lot of quality players.”
Jurgen Klopp has suggested that perhaps he was ‘a kid’ when he joined Chelsea but after a successful spell in Serie A with AS Roma, Salah is ‘a man now’ and is thriving at Liverpool.
“But in training he would do everything,” said Hazard. “Even in the games when he was playing, sometimes he would score goals, so we knew the quality he had. I am just happy for him.
“I watched him when he played for Roma – one of my friends from the national team, Radja Nainggolan, is also there – and he did very well. Now he is still at the top. And then even with his country he did well to reach the World Cup. At Liverpool he is still doing well, so I think we need to be careful with him. I want to ask him for his shirt, for sure, on Saturday.”
Chelsea beat Qarabag 4-0 in Baku on Wednesday night to qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League and they landed at Gatwick at 0300GMT on Thursday morning following a near 2,500-mile flight.
Head coach Antonio Conte has complained that this is the second time this season his side have had to play on a Saturday following a Wednesday night game away in the Champions League.
Chelsea won at Atletico Madrid in September, but then lost 1-0 to Manchester City, who lead the Blues by nine points ahead of Saturday’s trip to Anfield.
“The time between the two games is very short,” Hazard said.
“We need to adapt. We didn’t adapt well against Man City so we need to do better on Saturday.
“I want to be feeling good. A lot of players didn’t play, I played only 60 minutes and N’Golo (Kante) also came off so we can be fresh on Saturday, even if the game is close.
“We are professional, we can deal with this. We will do everything, we will do recovery and we will see on Saturday.”
Hazard suffered a broken ankle in June and was unavailable for Chelsea until September.
The Belgium playmaker has six goals in seven games, including two at West Brom last Saturday and a penalty in the win in Azerbaijan.
“I am feeling good, 100 per cent,” Hazard added.
“After injury sometimes you are feeling not 100 per cent but I am ready to play every game and of course when you are winning games it helps.
“Confidence is high, everything is in our hands to win games.
“We just want to keep playing like this and win games.”
