Saul Niguez is desperate to play in his preferred position at Chelsea as he looks to rejuvenate his career and World Cup hopes.

It was before a game against Chelsea in 2017 that Saul Niguez sat down with Sportsmail and told the story of his burst kidney - one that illustrated perfectly what lengths he would once go to at Atletico Madrid to just get in the starting XI.

Saul was in his favoured central midfield position that season and that’s where he started the game against Chelsea. Atletico lost the match 2-1 thanks to a 93rd minute winner from Michy Batshuayi.

They finished third in that Champions League group and they dropped into the Europa League but they won the competition, beating Marseille in the final, again with Saul in midfield.

He got 11 goals that season for club and country and double figures in a campaign looked like becoming the norm as his ability to time runs from midfield and finish well became his signature.

He was just 22-years-old at the time and opened up in that interview with Sportsmail about how a kick from Kyriakos Papadopoulos in a Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen two years earlier had left him peeing blood and contemplating losing a kidney.

He had been through surgery for renal colic the previous season and the kick in the same area had left him needing four days in hospital allowing doctors to drain his kidney and reduce the clot that had formed around the bruise.

He had an internal catheter fitted but problems lasted into the following year and he admitted: ‘When I stopped using the catheter the kidney was still not working. I was given the option of playing for a month and then stopping for a month and so I said: "This is no good. If you can put the catheter in again and I can function normally then let's do that, but if not then just take the kidney out. It's fine. I've got another one".'

He was persuaded never to take such drastic action by Diego Simeone’s then No 2 German Burgos who was well qualified to advise him because he was a kidney cancer survivor.

That Europa League-winning season with warrior Saul back to 100 per cent fully recovered from his career threatening injury was one of his best for Simeone who seemed to be planning to build his midfield around him long term.

Saul started 35 of the club’s 38 league games meaning no outfield player played more minutes in the domestic competition.

But Simeone’s preference for having plenty of central midfielders in his squad has always meant that some have been pushed out into the wide midfield positions to accommodate others.