{"id":471361,"date":"2019-07-01T17:21:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T21:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=471361"},"modified":"2019-07-01T17:21:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T21:21:37","slug":"mateo-kovacic-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/07\/01\/mateo-kovacic-chelsea\/","title":{"rendered":"Mateo Kovacic Was Not Worth Signing on a Permanent Deal For Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2019\/07\/01\/chelsea-mateo-kovacic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a> the signing of <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/79c0821a\/Mateo-Kovacic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mateo Kovacic<\/a> on a permanent dea, following his loan last season from <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/clubs\/real-madrid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Real Madrid<\/a>. However, he was not worth signing on a permanent deal.<\/p>\n<h1>Mateo Kovacic Was Not Worth Signing on a Permanent Deal<\/h1>\n<h2>Stats Don&#8217;t Lie<\/h2>\n<p>The 25-year-old arrived at Stamford Bridge with high expectation. However, he failed to deliver and the stats show his failure. Last season he registered just two assists in 50 appearances as <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/feeds\/chelseafootball-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chelsea<\/a> qualified for 2019\/20 Champions League: a disappointing return for a midfielder of the Croatian&#8217;s quality.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, his defensive statistics show he was not the hardest worker. During Chelsea&#8217;s Premier League campaign, he made just<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoscored.com\/Players\/93894\/Show\/Mateo-Kovacic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> 1.4 tackles<\/a> per game. In comparison, team-mates <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/b9fbae28\/NGolo-Kante\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">N&#8217;Golo Kante<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/45db685d\/Jorginho\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jorginho<\/a> both made more tackles per game last season.<\/p>\n<p>Kovacic was not prolific going forward for Chelsea either. He averaged less than one key pass a game during his 50 appearances last season.<\/p>\n<h2>Time To Start Using Youth at Chelsea<\/h2>\n<p>Chelsea are well-known for having a large and successful academy but have a failure to use it. However, they should opt to change that.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/9674002f\/Mason-Mount\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mason Mount<\/a> is one of several midfielders Chelsea should consider using frequently next season. The 19-year-old had a successful first season in English football on loan at Derby County. He scored eight goals and registered eight assists as Derby narrowly missed out on promotion.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to his injury, <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/e97fd090\/Ruben-Loftus-Cheek\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ruben Loftus-Cheek<\/a> was finally starting to see success at Stamford Bridge. He scored ten goals and grabbed five assists before picking up a long-term injury.<\/p>\n<p>Both Mount&#8217;s and Loftus-Cheek&#8217;s attacking prowess will prove more valuable for Chelsea in the future. Signing Mateo Kovacic may prove to be wasteful for the Blues.<\/p>\n<h2>Experience May Prove Key<\/h2>\n<p>Kovacic does have plenty of experience to succeed. Chelsea is the fourth club of his career; previously playing for Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Dinamo Zagreb. His Champions League experience could prove vital in their return to the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <a id=\"L3gKbdYYRgJFFr2AN_6zEg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1148832295\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'L3gKbdYYRgJFFr2AN_6zEg',sig:'-VPwur4hXe9HO2qnCL1DedKtUQDjgLYjWDcQxvLfoz4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1148832295',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have announced the signing of Mateo Kovacic on a permanent dea, following his loan last season from Real Madrid. However, he was not worth signing on a permanent deal. Mateo Kovacic Was Not Worth Signing on a Permanent Deal Stats Don&#8217;t Lie The 25-year-old arrived at Stamford Bridge with high expectation. However, he failed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2795,"featured_media":471444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,3],"tags":[46,2106,40,182,136],"class_list":["post-471361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea","tag-mateo-kovacic","tag-premier-league","tag-real-madrid","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}