Cesc Fabregas proves doubters wrong again

There were several surprises in Antonio Conte’s lineup last night, one of them was the lack of a striker, another that Gary Cahill was sitting out. But the fact that the midfield would consist of just N’Golo Kante and Cesc Fabregas  was perhaps the biggest of all.

Conte has defaulted to a 352 in most big games this season, to give the midfield some extra presence, and when he’s played with two it’s almost always been Kante with Danny Drinkwater or Tiemoue Bakayoko.

Fabregas, the logic goes, doesn’t have the legs or defensive mindset to play in a two. But last night he proved that logic faulty.

The Spaniard was excellent against his former club, playing a very careful and defensive game, just what his team needed from him. Of course having Kante tearing up and down next to him helped, but Fabregas was excellent playing the ball through Barcelona’s press and trying to pick out the mobile forwards further up the pitch.

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