Samuel Eto'o believes that he should have returned to training after the festive break even earlier, but considers that Lionel Messi needs no time to prepare as he is the best player in the world.

The Cameroon international was praised for opting to go back to Barcelona four day ahead of schedule when he returned on Tuesday instead of Friday last week.

But Eto'o himself thinks that he should have gone back on Monday to give himself a whole week to prepare for the game against Mallorca, which Barça won 3-1 in the Camp Nou.

"The truth is that after playing I feel that I came back a bit too late. I needed another day of training in order to be at my best," Sport quote him as saying.

"I had already done everything in Cameroon that I wanted to do. I was with my parents and I had rested and so I wanted to see my team-mates, but I should have come back earlier to help the team."

Lionel Messi returned from a holiday in Argentina and Eto'o believes that the forward could have come back on Saturday and still played well against Mallorca.

"I arrived back late, but Messi did not. He can come back when he wants because he is ready. Leo is the best in the world and if I was the coach I would let him do what he wanted," he stated.

"If he wanted to return on the same day as a game then not much would happen, he is that special. I would let him do everything."