I won 11 trophies at Chelsea and best teammate needed one thing to rival Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo

John Obi Mikel suggested Eden Hazard had it in him to be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi… if only he had tried in training!

Mikel admitted that the Chelsea legend wasn’t a fan of getting down to work at the club’s Cobham training ground, something that may have stopped him from reaching his potential.

Hazard, who joined from Lille for £32million in 2012, is a Chelsea legend.

In his career with the club, he made 352 appearances for the Blues, scoring 110 goals and providing 85 assists along the way to helping the club to two Premier League titles, two Europa League crowns and an FA Cup.

Having played together for five years, Mikel knew all about Hazard’s talents but admitted that his stellar career could have been even better.

Asked who the best player he’s ever played with Mikel told talkSPORT Drive: “Technically? Eden Hazard.”

Asked if he fulfilled his potential, Mikel said: “No. He didn’t train. He didn’t apply himself. Imagine if he did?

“Imagine if he worked out like a Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi?

“He didn’t like training, he didn’t fancy it because he was so technically gifted that he didn’t need it.”

Jason Cundy then asked if football came easy to Hazard, to which Mikel replied: “Too easy.

“He didn’t train, then went out on a Saturday at 3pm and wins you the game and wins man of the match.

“What can you say? Nothing.”

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Responding to Mikel’s comments, Claude Makelele said: “You can say many things!

Mikel replied: “We told him, Claude.

“He’d say ‘no, leave me alone’. He’d say ‘I don’t want to go and train, you go and train’.”

Makelele then added: “Do you remember when we were starting with (Arjen) Robben, it was the same but every single day on the training ground we told him because we knew that we needed him in a game.

“Sometimes it needs to come from your teammates.”

Meanwhile, Cundy said: “When it comes so easy, and Eden Hazard is the best Chelsea player I’ve ever seen. He’s the best I’ve ever seen.

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“But when it comes so easily, and he didn’t want to be the best in the world. He didn’t want to be a Cristiano, he didn’t want to be a Lionel Messi.

“He was happy doing what he was doing. And you’re absolutely right, the problem you’ve got, he would be the best player on the pitch on a Saturday.

“Now I don’t know what he did midweek because I didn’t see that. But every Saturday that he turned up, he was the best player on the pitch.”

In an interview with L’Equipe, Hazard was asked to weigh in on the eternal debate which pits the Argentinian superstar against the Portuguese icon – and to offer an opinion on how he measured up himself.

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“Individually, Messi is perhaps the only one [better than me],” he said.

“I loved watching the Barcelona player, less so at the end, but he’s the greatest in history.

“It’s impossible to take the ball away from him.

“Cristiano is a bigger player than me but, in terms of pure football, I honestly don’t think so.

“Neymar, maybe.

“After that, he’s no better than me, but at Real, you’ve got the best, also in terms of their careers: [Karim] Benzema, [Luka] Modric, they were the best, [Toni] Kroos, Kevin [De Bruyne], they all exude football.”

After seven years with Chelsea, Hazard joined Real Madrid for a fee in excess of £88.5million.

Despite struggling to recapture the form he showed in west London, Hazard did win two LaLiga titles and a Champions League while scoring seven goals and providing 12 assists in 76 matches.

He was also a part of Belgium’s golden generation, scoring 33 goals in 126 matches for his country before retiring from football in 2023.