Hazard opens up on playing under Mourinho at Blues - 'huge respect' for the boss

Eden Hazard has admitted his relationship with Jose Mourinho broke down during the manager's disastrous final season at Chelsea.

Mourinho returned for his second spell at Stamford Bridge in 2013, and won his third Premier League title with the club two years later, with Hazard playing a starring role for the Blues.

But Chelsea's title defence went calamitously wrong, and Mourinho was sacked in December 2015 with the team down in 16th place.

Speaking on former team-mate John Obi Mikel's Obi One Podcast, Hazard claimed his first two years with Mourinho could hardly have gone better, but revealed their relationship became strained towards the end, with Hazard not scoring a league goal until April in the 2015-16 season.

'The first two seasons, amazing,' Hazard said. 'Remember the first year, the team was new so it was just the beginning. Then the second season of Jose we won the league and we won the League Cup.

'Then the third season was like starting problems, we lost games and at the end the relationship went away a little bit.

'But then I have just huge respect for him and what he did in his whole career as a manager. Now I can tell my kids that Jose Mourinho was my manager for like two-and-a-half years. Just a good story, you know.'

Over the past two decades, Mourinho has become known for making his teams difficult to break down by expecting every player to work hard on and off the ball.

Yet Hazard seemed to get more opportunities to express himself at Chelsea under Mourinho, with the manager recognising that the Belgian winger was capable of being a game-changer.

Responding to whether he was given total freedom to roam around the pitch and make things happen in the final third, Hazard denied that was the case, but did concede