N’Golo Kante picked up an injury in the last international break with France, and has not started for Chelsea since.
The Blues suffered without him against West Brom, but have since picked up important wins against Porto and Crystal Palace with the midfielder featuring only as a substitute.
That’s given him the chance to recover, and given we have a 2-0 lead against the Portuguese team from that first leg, he will hopefully only have to feature for limited time in tomorrow’s second leg.
That should all lead up to him being totally fresh for this weekend’s big game – the FA Cup semi final against Manchester City. We will need the France star at his absolute best to get past Pep Guardiola’s impressive outfit, and that means Kante playing the whole game.
Tomorrow night’s selection then becomes a very interesting one – does Tuchel risk not using his star man from the start? Or would that be pure hubris given how quickly a 2-0 lead can vanish?
There’s not long to wait until we find out.
