Starting his first game for Chelsea since arriving on loan from Juventus in the 2-1 win against Dinamo Zagreb, Denis Zakaria also scored in that fixture.
It will have been a great moment for the Switzerland international, who chose to swap Turin for Stamford Bridge late on in the summer as the Blues were looking for a midfielder.
This was under Thomas Tuchel, who didn’t play him in the early games, and there was hope that would change under Graham Potter.
However, it didn’t at first, with the midfielder remaining on the bench, before being given a chance in the final game of the Champions League group stages.
The Chelsea loanee grabbed it with both hands, but it wasn’t enough to earn him a spot in the next game against Arsenal, which the Blues ended up losing 1-0.
Still, what his performance did avoid, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, was an early return to Juventus, which had been mentioned previously.
The newspaper write that the Serie A side ‘breathed a deep sigh of relief’ when he scored, as ‘managing a return of the midfielder a few months after his departure’ would have been a ‘very difficult situation’, one that would have also led to ‘embarrassment’.
For now, though, Zakaria ‘will stay’ at Chelsea ‘until the end of the season’, at which point the Blues ‘will decide whether to redeem him or not’.
This seems unlikely, but there is still time for the player to convince Potter, and his club, otherwise.
