One of the tantalisingly believable stories of the early days of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea ownership details his efforts to keep Gianfranco Zola, who had already agreed a return to Italy with Cagliari. Abramovich’s proposed solution? To simply buy the Serie B club.

16 years later, the stakes are rather higher. The whispering about Eden Hazard’s future seems to have gone ominously silent. A move to Real Madrid, one way or another, now feels inevitable. For Abramovich’s reference, Real were most recently valued at around £3bn.

Like Zola before him, Hazard is reaching the end of his seventh season at Stamford Bridge having long since earned the eternal fondness of Chelsea supporters. Both saved their best for last: a 36-year-old Zola played every game of the 2002/03 season, producing his best Premier League goal tally of 14. Likewise, with three games to go, Hazard has already matched his best league goalscoring tally of 16 and, with 13 assists, has delivered by a distance his most creative season for Chelsea.

“He annoyed me,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said of Zola, in what can confidently be interpreted as a compliment. “He was one of those players who was unperturbed about who he was playing against. You always saw a smile on his face, and that annoyed me. I said ‘how can he be enjoying himself playing against [Manchester] United?’ Nobody else does.”