Brian McDermott experienced a sense of deja vu when he saw Eden Hazard tormenting the Wigan defence on Sunday. The Reading manager's mind drifted back to an afternoon spent in France five years ago, when he was employed as the Premier League club's chief scout and travelled to Lille to watch a teenager from Belgium produce a performance that had the talent spotters drooling.

"Hazard was 16 or 17 years of age and I thought he was phenomenal," recalled McDermott, whose Reading side make the short but rather daunting trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea on Wednesday night. "Everyone knew at 16 what a talent he was going to be. He is incredible. He goes down the side of people, he's got great feet and he can go either way with the ball. He was making his way back then but he stood out like a proverbial sore thumb.

"I saw [Marouane] Fellaini play in an Under-21 tournament and asked about trying to sign him for Reading at the time but I think he was about £7m. He was another one, 17 years of age and he was terrific. These guys know they've got a special talent and Hazard was a special talent. But you can't go to a place like Lille and go: 'We'll take your best player.' It just doesn't happen."

Chelsea did just that this summer, albeit after handing over a cheque for £32m. It is a huge sum of money for a midfielder who is only 21, although the early signs are that Hazard, who came in for some rough treatment at Wigan, has the mental fortitude as well as the technical ability to be a success in the Premier League.

"He looks as though he's going to handle the physicality of the league no problem. He was excellent on Sunday," McDermott said. "Going back to when I played, you could kick people out of the league because that's how it was in those days. But this day and age it's not like that, thank God. Make one tackle now and you get booked. In a way that's why the flair players in the league thrive now and I think that's a good thing."

In an intriguing sub-plot to the Chelsea game both clubs will have Russian owners watching from the stands, with Anton Zingarevich, who took control at Reading in May, coming face to face with Roman Abramovich. "Anton absolutely loves his football," said McDermott, who will be picking from the same squad that drew with Stoke on the opening day. "I know he wanted to play football as a youngster, he got involved in a game [during pre-season] with the staff and the press when we were in Portugal. He was desperate to play. He did all right, actually."

Asked what position Zingarevich plays, McDermott replied: "Anywhere he likes."