Chelsea drew their Champions League clash vs Valencia and Mateo Kovacic was one of the standout performers on the night for the Blues.
This was the midfielder’s 71st club appearance and finally, he managed to break his duck scoring the first goal for the Blues four minutes before half-time.
From the very first minute of the match, it looked like Mateo Kovacic was playing with different freedom as many people felt, the manager had given him the license to roam in and around the final third.
And speaking after the match, Frank Lampard revealed what he had joking spoken about Mateo Kovacic not scoring goals for the club.
“We’ve had a lot of jokes between me and him, and the whole squad and him, because he’s a player of such quality that should score more goals,” said Lampard.
“It’s a project for me, for him and for the whole staff to get him more goals, and he could have scored two.
1 – Mateo Kovacic has scored his first goal in 122 appearances across all club competitions, netting his first goal for Chelsea on his 71st appearance, and with his 45th shot. Thirsty. #UCL pic.twitter.com/zQfmTWygnD
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 27, 2019
“I’m delighted for him and I hope that’s the start of something new.”
Mateo Kovacic looks a player reborn especially while playing under Frank Lampard and right now he is one of the first names on Lampard’s teamsheets.
But the rise of the Croatian is not good news for Ross Barkley who was more or less played in tandem with Kovacic last season.
This season though, Barkley is struggling to get into the first XI and if Mateo Kovacic keeps up his stellar performances then surely the England international can wave his Chelsea career goodbye.
