Jose Mourinho had Claude Makelele, the glue of Chelsea’s two consecutive Premier League triumphs in 2004/05 and 2005/06. Carlo Ancelotti had Michael Ballack and Michael Essien putting in tough tackles and disrupting opposition attacks in midfield in our title-winning 2009/10 campaign.
Since Essien and Ballack departed the club, Chelsea have been yearning for another midfielder just like the two former players at Stamford Bridge.
Leicester midfielder N’Golo Kante could just be that player that we have so badly needed for the past couple of years.
According to the Telegraph, other than Koulibaly, Antonio Conte is chasing a deal for Alvaro Morata + is poised to trigger Kante’s £20m release clause once Euro 2016 ends. It is also believed that Kante’s keen to join Chelsea and will turn down the offer of a new £100k-a-week contract at Premier League champions Leicester.
The club has spent a considerable amount of money in the past couple of years yet Jon Obi Mikel and Nemanja Matic are the only two natural defensive midfielders at the club.
Jon Obi Mikel has been an excellent servant to us, good when called upon under Guus Hiddink last season—the perception of Mikel being “awful” from some fans is a complete disservice to the Nigerian, but Chelsea need a truly great midfielder on the defensive side of things and Mikel, sadly, isn’t one.
Nemanja Matic, so solid in 14/15, endured a terrible campaign in 2015/16, dropped for Mikel by Guus Hiddink in January. The same applies for Matic as it does for Mikel; Chelsea need a great defensive midfielder (plus some other signings of course) to get to the next level but, the thing is, Matic just isn’t one of those.
I wouldn’t call Kante a “defensive midfielder” or a “box-to-box” played who just sits back and defends but he’s somewhere in the middle. There’s more to his game. He’s no Arturo Vidal or Yaya Touré, but he’s also not Mikel. He is a well-rounded footballer who is actually very intelligent and sensible with the ball.
Kante is a non-stop mixture of tenacity, vigour and dynamism. He may not score many goals or get many assists but the Leicester No.14 works tirelessly in midfield from minute one to ninety, working as effective as a battery.
The thing Kante does so well is when Leicester press—he always keeps the initial shape, then has the positional awareness to sit in the shadows and spring out when the ball is played vertically to the opposition forwards/midfielders.
The other team believe they have full control of the ball before Kante and his central midfield partner, Danny Drinkwater, explosively rush out and regain it.
This sort of intelligence, reading the man playing the pass like a book and either intercepting the ball or quickly getting it off its recipient so Leicester can counter, could be very suitable for Antonio Conte’s concept of football—pressing, trying to get the ball back and starting a quick counter-attack that could catch the opposition out.
Kante, so good at one-on-ones, also topped the Premier League charts for the most tackles won and the most interceptions made in 2015/16. A ball-winning animal, the former Caen midfielder won an extraordinary nine tackles and made seven interceptions when Leicester thrashed Newcastle United 3-0 in November.
In the words of Claudio Ranieri, this is not a footballer, this is a fantastic horse. Former Chelsea defender Marcel Desially has had this to say about the current Chelsea squad, and it’s hard not to agree: “Some of the players at Chelsea don’t match with Antonio Conte’s philosophy or game. He [Conte] will have to probably get rid of two or three players before we can allow him to develop his skills.”
That’s why signing Kante would be such a good one. Antonio Conte may inculcate his methods on his current players with time, but Chelsea need revolution and not evolution—we need players that suit Conte’s football right away and Kante would be one of those.
Where would he fit in at Chelsea?
The ball-winner would slot right into central midfield, in either a 3-5-2, 3-4-3, 4-2-4 or 4-4-2. Kante is used to playing in a 4-4-2, with Claudio Ranieri playing this system at Leicester last season, and the way Kante can just break up play in it is fantastic.
At only £20 million, Kante would prove a bargain for Chelsea, and would be that tough midfielder that the club have been yearning for.
