The award was announced at the Europa League draw which took place today in Monaco, following on from yesterday’s Champions League draw in which the Blues were a part.

Helping to draw the teams for the Europa League was another of our former players, Ashley Cole, who while interviewed spoke about a new role he will be taking at Chelsea, coaching the Under-15s. Hazard, now with Real Madrid, beat team-mate from last season Olivier Giroud in the voting for the Europa League honour, which was decided by a jury of coaches from the clubs in last season's group stage plus selected journalists.The Belgian was man of the match in our 4-1 final win over Arsenal in Baku, scoring two of the goals and setting up one of the others.

Luka Jovic, another player who moved to Real in the summer was third in the voting. He scored twice for Eintracht Frankfurt against Chelsea in the semi-final. Giroud, the runner-up, was tournament top scorer with 11 goals from his 14 Europa League appearances, two of them as a substitute.Three other Chelsea players made the top 10 in the voting, N’Golo Kante who was sixth, Willian who was eighth and Pedro who was ninth equal.

Top 10 players of 2018/19 UEFA Europa League according to UEFA’s voting1 Eden Hazard (Chelsea, now Real Madrid) – 340 points2 Olivier Giroud (Chelsea) – 119 points3 Luka Jovic (Eintracht, now Real Madrid) – 94 points4 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) – 65 points5 Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) – 19 points6 N'Golo Kante (Chelsea) – 16 points7 Joao Felix (Benfica, now Atletico) – 12 points8 Willian (Chelsea) – 11 points9= Pedro Rodríguez (Chelsea) – 9 points9= Sebastien Haller (Eintracht, now West Ham) – 9 points