£40m Chelsea man covered more distance than any player on the pitch against Real Madrid

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Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic covered more distance than any individual player on the pitch in Wednesday’s Champions League tie with Real Madrid.

UEFA’s official stats revealed he covered more ground than midfield partner Enzo Fernandez, who was second out of all the starters on the night.

The game was no doubt the biggest of the season so far as far as Chelsea are concerned, with all their hopes and dreams of salvaging something from this campaign coming here.

They were outclassed for most of the night though, losing 2-0 to the defending Champions in the away leg of the quarter-final.

The Blues will even be remotely relieved that that’s how it ended, after Ben Chilwell’s second half red card put the tie in jeopardy of already being over.

Kovacic covered most distance vs Madrid

With their goal threat near enough completely gone, the players were forced to dig in to at least keep the tie alive heading back to Stamford Bridge.

One of those who certainly achieved that was Kovacic, shown by the statistic that he covered the most ground on the pitch.

This is despite it not being his best evening technically, being caught in possession a few too many times against a team like Madrid.

The midfield battle was won by the hosts on the night, even though the Croatian was joined by Fernandez and a fit-again N’golo Kante.

It will be interesting to see which combination of those midfielders, or indeed any others from the squad, are used tomorrow when the Premier League returns with a match against Brighton.

The fact the tie is still alive could see Frank Lampard rest a number of key figures ahead of what is going to be a do-or-die game at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday.