Eden Hazard always wanted to stay at Chelsea rather than move to PSG

Premier League's reigning young player of the year says moving to the French capital never crossed his mind

Paris Saint Germain may be an attractive target for many top professional footballers, with the enormous wealth of their Qatari owners.

But Eden Hazard, the Barclays Premier League young player of the year who last week signed a new five-and-a-half year deal with Chelsea worth a reported £200,000 a week, says that his head was never turned by the lure of moving to Paris and Ligue 1.

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Hazard's new deal will see him earn in the region of £57 million before tax during its duration - something of a motivation to stay on the Kings Road.

And with Chelsea set to face PSG later this week in the last 16 of the Champions League, Hazard poured freezing water on suggestions that he was ever considering a move to the French capital.

“PSG? Personally there was never anything in that,” Hazard said. “The newspapers talked about it a lot, but I knew from the start that I would stay at Chelsea.”

Hazard, who was also named Chelsea's player of the year last season, was part of the Chelsea side that lost 3-1 to PSG in the Champions League quarter-final first leg last season.

Hoever, Laurent Blanc's expensively-assembled side have struggled since then - they lie third in Ligue 1, behind Marseille and Lyon, the youthful and exciting league leaders.

“I don’t think it was a miracle against them (PSG) last year,” Hazard added. “We shouldn’t have lost 3-1 in the first leg, we should have played better some counterattacks. And we made two defensive errors.

“We were a little bit lucky to score in the last minute. It will be a whole other game this year. We’re on a good run, we’re first in the league and we’ve got reinforcements.

“I still follow Ligue 1 and I can see that PSG is in a little bit of trouble, but they have great players who can make the difference. Perhaps we’re the favorites, but you can never tell in football.”