Chelsea news: N’Golo Kante has yet to return from another injury difficulty, he can no longer be depended upon as a vital participant
A greater part of players passes through football clubs, such as changing cast individuals in a long-running West End production. Some are replaceable, and even though their heritages might gain adoration, others can repeat their talents, particularly at clubs with the significant funds to find them.
N’Golo Kante is certainly in a different section. Once he leaves west London in May or beyond, replicating his range of abilities is a task even the shrewdest recruitment group in the game would envy.
Parts will be written in future football books about his effect on the game and how his unique and transformative range of abilities drove his clubs and country to extraordinary levels. How, for a little player’s height, his effect on games was so dominant and overwhelming for the opposition to handle.
Notwithstanding, those extraordinary things about Kante are increasingly being written in the past tense. The 2015/16 season with Leicester, the 2016/17 title win with Chelsea, and the crazy run of structure in the spring of 2021 drove Chelsea to their second Champions Association.
With each game he misses, those moments move further away, and the fierce reality of where Kante sits now becomes more clear.
The midfielder has not played a minute of football since the fourteenth of August, nearly two months prior. The hamstring injury that constrained him off against Prods has prompted a longer break than initially anticipated. “We’re talking about weeks, which isn’t uplifting news.” Then Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel said after the Spikes game. “We’re disappointed and miserable because N’Golo was fit.”
The weeks have turned into months. When Kante returns, he will play under his fifth Chelsea head coach in six years and given a recent misfortune conceded by Graham Potter preceding the excursion to face AC Milan. Unclear when the return will even be.
“We’re only waiting for [Kante’s] reaction from training,” Potter said. “It is certainly not great, so we should keep a watch out for the extent of it and go from that point.”
Kante has previously missed 10 of Chelsea’s opening 12 games up to this point this term. Nine remain in a congested four-week time span before everything stops for the World Cup in Qatar, a competition Didier Deschamps will trust Kante can highlight as France plans to defend their crown.
Discusses have been ongoing over Kante’s contract situation, with reports emerging last month of the difference in expectations between the club and the player. Kante, now 31, naturally considers this to be his last chance for a major contract. Chelsea expectedly is hesitant to offer a lengthy one, given his continuous fitness concerns.
Arguments for handing Kante a new contract are naturally reliant on how unequivocal his influence can be would it be a good idea for him if he remains fit and performs to his best? In his last game against Prods, Kante searched in top condition and structure. He was brutally eating up the ground, snapping into challenges, and helping to overpower Prods’ midfield.
There is little point arguing against this because without Kante fit, it is very unlikely Chelsea win the Champions Association in 2021, likely his most defining win at the club given his run of standout performances during the knockout stage.
Yet, the rebound to that is all additionally difficult to battle: his absence of accessibility.
Tuchel stunned onlookers back in May when he removed time from his press conference following an entirely forgettable attract with Leicester to stack acclaim on Kante.
“I think he is our key, key, central member, however the key, key, vital participants need to be on the pitch, and on the off chance that he plays only 40% of the games, it is perhaps a supernatural occurrence that we show up in the third spot. He is our Mo Salah, our [Virgil] van Dijk, our [Kevin] De Bruyne.
“He is that player. He is our Neymar, our Kylian Mbappe, he is the person who has the effect, and on the off chance that you only have him 40%, it is a tremendous issue.”
When Kante was at his best, that assessment is right. He is one of the best in his position in world football. The defect in that ‘key’ argument comes when you figure out how long he now spends on the sidelines. What amount of Chelsea’s seasons are spent hoping Kante returns to fitness?
To be a vital participant, by definition, you need to be accessible and fit for most of the season. Mason Mount presumably fits that bill most suitably based on his pretty insane sturdiness since his leap forward in 2019.
We are now at a point where protecting Kante has come above getting him back on the pitch. Which is the correct approach to things when perhaps coaches of the past have pushed to get him back involved. In any case, is that a brilliant utilization of Chelsea’s time in a particularly crucial region of the pitch?
Relying on Kante’s fitness is a delicate system, just demonstrated by the evidence of missing 73 games for club and country since the beginning of the 2019/20 campaign. Albeit scarcely any players can give the transformative impact Kante can ought to Potter enjoy a run of accessibility, Chelsea cannot plan for the long-term with that expectation.
It indicates why Chelsea needs to begin investing later on. Either by promoting the players they currently have into those essential midfield jobs or by genuinely looking at buying new ones in January or for next summer when Kante’s contract lapses.
That decision has been late for quite a while, and it is a severe one based on the incredible inheritance Kante will undoubtedly abandon him. Offering him a new arrangement isn’t the no-brainer it once appeared. The way that situation sorts itself out, Chelsea needs to find their next key midfielder elsewhere.
