“He’s the laziest guy” - John Obi Mikel names Chelsea star who had potential to reach same level as Cristiano Ronaldo

John Obi Mikel has claimed that Chelsea legend Eden Hazard had the potential to reach Cristiano Ronaldo's level. The former Blues midfielder stated that the Belgian star was lazy in training and that stopped him from reaching his potential.

Speaking on his podcast, Mikel claimed that Hazard was on the same level as Ronaldo, but the Chelsea legend was only interested in playing the matches and never in training. He added that the Belgian had the energy to perform in every game despite the lack of training and said:

“Oh, he’s the laziest guy, just pure talent. Yeah, just pure talent. He just shows, then he comes up on a Saturday and he just produces magic after magic. And just, you know, score goals, skits assist, you know, go past people very easily. But then you’re thinking, how, where the hell did he get that energy, the training to be able to do that? Because, obviously, we’re trained to be able to perform like that on the weekend. Exactly. But he just does it. You know, he does those things so freely. It’s unbelievable – about a sort of a Cristiano Ronaldo level, I probably would have said.”

Eden Hazard has retired from football already, while Cristiano Ronaldo is still continuing at Al Nassr. The Belgian called it time after struggling with injuries at Real Madrid.

Chelsea legend Eden Hazard believed he was better than Cristiano Ronaldo in talent

Eden Hazard spoke to L'Equipe last year and stated that only Lionel Messi was better than him in terms of talent. The Chelsea legend claimed that Cristiano Ronaldo was the bigger player but not in terms of pure football talent. He said (via GOAL):

"Individually, Messi is perhaps the only one. 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: Benzema, Modric, they were the best, Kroos, Kev' (De Bruyne), they all exude football."

Cristiano Ronaldo is inching closer to 1000 goals in his career. He has scored more goals since turning 30 than Eden Hazard has in his career.