to the above 'answer' the last line which prints the category name is not doing so.

It should look like this:

$categories = get_the_category();
foreach( $categories as $category) {
    $name = $category->name;
    $category_link = get_category_link( $category->term_id );

    echo "<a href='$category_link'>
            <span class=" . esc_attr( $name) . ">" . esc_attr( $name) . "</span>
         </a>";
}

In the above 'answer', the last line which prints the category name is not actually doing so.

It should look like this:

$categories = get_the_category();
foreach( $categories as $category) {
    $name = $category->name;
    $category_link = get_category_link( $category->term_id );

    echo "<a href='$category_link'>
            <span class=" . esc_attr( $name) . ">" . esc_attr( $name) . "</span>
         </a>";
}