Hazard 'the laziest footballer I've ever seen' claims ex-Chelsea teammate

Suraj Radia

• 17 Feb 2023 18:23 GMT
• 2 min read

Eden Hazard has been described as ‘the laziest footballer I’ve ever seen’ by one of his former teammates at Chelsea.

The Belgian spent seven seasons with the Blues, establishing himself as one of the best players in the Premier League, before joining Real Madrid for a fee in excess of €100 million in 2019.

Hazard’s time at Real has been blighted by injury, poor form and criticisms over his conditioning and the 32-year-old has been on the fringes of Carlo Ancelotti’s squad, with a summer exit likely.

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Complaints over Hazard’s attitude have plagued the forward throughout his career and Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel admitted his former teammate was ‘the worst’ in training but was excused due to his performances on the pitch.

“Everybody wants to be in the starting XI come the weekend and there is no place for you to be like "I don't want to train today". The only player I saw do that and get away with it was Eden Hazard,' Mikel told Dubai Eye.

'He never trained. The worst. The laziest footballer I have ever seen in my life. But then come the weekend he produces and was man of the match. He comes in then and was like "come on guys you see!”

Hazard ‘used to eat rice pudding’ before games

Hazard arrived in Madrid on the back of his most prolific season ever but he has only managed to play 51 La Liga games in his four seasons with Real, netting just four times.

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He has been criticised by some for being overweight and, while Mikel believes Hazard has slimmed down since his Chelsea days, he implied that he was not surprised by the winger’s decline, having seen his eating habits first hand.

'I actually think when you look at him now he has lost a lot of weight,' said Mikel. “But when he was at Chelsea the night before a game after dinner, he sits there for like 20 minutes, half an hour, eating rice pudding. He likes his food.

“In training he stands in one place, in one position and says ‘can you pass me the ball?’ And we say ‘no we can’t pass you the ball’ because we’ve been running the whole time!

'Then he goes to bed, wakes up on a Saturday morning and is there, he produces. We just let him do whatever he wants.”