Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri wants his side the club to make their loan deal for Real Madrid midfielder Mateo Kovacic permanent.
The 24-year-old has made 42 first-team appearances for the West London club since last summer’s loan deal, but there is no option to buy included in the deal.
“I want to try with Kovacic. He is only on loan, of course. I'd like very much that Kovacic will stay with us,” Sarri told his pre-match press conference.
“You know very well that, in that position, we have some problems because we have only Jorginho and in my opinion, Kovacic could become a very good central midfielder.
“Of course, he is not a defensive midfielder but, as you know, in that position I prefer a very technical player. For us it's very important for us to have big quality in that position. Big quality not for the last pass, but big quality in terms of moving the ball.”
Madrid signed the former Dinamo Zagreb midfielder from Italian giants Inter in the summer of 2015 for €30m and are said to want significantly more than that sum in the event of a permanent departure.
The Croat started only 37 La Liga games across three seasons in the Spanish capital with only 10 of those coming last season.
