Chelsea legend Mario Melchiot believes that the club will lose Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard because they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

Maurizio Sarri will be playing Europa League football this season after the team fell apart in an unhappy second season for Antonio Conte.

The club ended up finishing in fifth position, leaving them just outside the Champions League places.

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As a result Melchiot believes that the club will lose the Belgian duo to Real Madrid, telling talkSPORT:

“That’s the problem – those guys want to play in the Champions League,” he told talkSPORT.

“They want to play in a team that has enough quality to complete to win the Champions League and Premier League titles.

“Clubs like Madrid or Barcelona, they don’t have that problem.

“And as a player, if you’re at a club like Chelsea and you’re playing at the top of the league, you don’t have to worry about it either.

“But when you’re not, that’s when you have to consider it.”

Melchiot thinks trophies are the biggest attraction for the top players as they consider their legacy:

“By the end of your career you want to win as many trophies as you can and you do whatever it takes to get there.

“When you’re at a top team and you can deliver that, you don’t have to consider other teams,

“But when the likes of Madrid and Barcelona come they guarantee you play at that level, so it’s almost impossible not to consider it, especially when you are going through a difficult time with the team you’re at now.”

Melchiot won the FA Cup and Charity Shield with Chelsea but left before they won their first Premier League title.