Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic can draw plenty of positives from this season.

He has racked up 44 appearances, started each of the four finals we have contested, scored one of the goals of the season, against Liverpool, and arguably produced his best showing at Real Madrid when they came so close to completing a remarkable Champions League comeback.

"In my opinion it can be viewed as a successful season, not the perfect season, but a very good season," Kovacic told the club's website.

"We got two trophies, one which Chelsea never got, so it's a proud moment to be the first team to have won the Club World Cup. With all our problems, we still reached two cup finals. It's still a big achievement. If we had won one more trophy more, it would be a very, very good season.

"We had a very good first spell of the season. Then unfortunately we had some injuries, and some Covid cases, and we had our problems, but in the end we have managed to get into the top four, even if we should have done it even earlier.

"In life and in football you have bad moments and good moments," he adds. "We had very good moments over the last year, and unfortunately in the last two finals, two disappointments, but we will come back stronger for sure."