Eden Hazard Needs Consistency to Reach Gareth Bale Levels, Says Neville

Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville reckons that Eden Hazard has the capability to become as good as Neymar or Gareth Bale, but he says thatHazard has struggled to do so because of consistency issues.


The 26-year-old came up with an incredible reputation as one of the highly talented youngsters in world football. He has been at Chelsea for five years after having joined the club for around £ 32 million. In this period, he has managed to win several honours including the Europa League and the Premier league title. On an individual basis, Hazard was crowned as the PFA Player of the Year during the 2014-15 season.

However, Hazard failed to improve on this campaign as he had a season to forget in the 2015-16 campaign. Now, though, he appears to be one of the top players at Chelsea once again, although not necessarily the best. Hazard has scored 10 goals and created 4 in 25 appearancesthis season.

Neville says that it would not be long before Hazard is regarded in the same breath as Gareth Bale or Neymar. However, the Belgian will be compared only if he is consistent over several campaigns. Gareth Bale has scored only seven goals this season, but he has been restricted to only 13 starts as a result of injuries.

“Hazard has the ability to be in the sort of top three, four, five players in the world, with the likes of Neymar, Bale.Obviously Cristiano and Messi are out there on their own, they’re like a super planet.But when you think about Bale and Neymar, I think Hazard has got the ability to be in that bracket.And he should be doing more all the time. He is world class, the talent. It’s just his levels of consistency to be able to produce it year-in year-out that I think is the question,” said Neville.