da aviator aposta： N’Golo Kante has rightly earned a reputation for himself as arguably the best midfield enforcer in the world, but the appointment of Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea has seen him take up a different role in the engine room during the first few weeks of Premier League action.
da bet vitoria： Jorginho now provides the platform in the middle of the park, with Kante and Ross Barkley – soon to be Mateo Kovacic – situated just in front of him in a role that gives the freedom to join the attack and get into the penalty area.
The early signs are certainly encouraging. During his first outing of any description under Sarri, Kante steamed into the Huddersfield box and connected, albeit considerably uncleanly, with a Willian cross to match his Premier League haul of one goal from each of the last three seasons.
Against Arsenal on Saturday, meanwhile, Kante was once again a noteworthy driving force – creating the most chances, four, of any Chelsea player and ranking joint-second for efforts at goal.
In many ways, we shouldn’t be all that surprised. While Kante’s impeccable returns for tackles and interceptions have pigeon-holed him as a relentless ball-winner, he’s always offered his teams much more than a succession of turnovers.
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At Leicester City, he was the box-to-box dynamo driving play on the break next to a more static Danny Drinkwater, and that’s the role he enjoyed during Chelsea’s last Premier League title with Nemanja Matic sitting the deeper of the two in a 3-4-3. In fact, back when he first arrived in English football, Claudio Ranieri started the French World Cup winner on the left wing.
For how influential Kante is already proving to be slightly further forward though, it’s impossible to overlook the fact he ends up in positions that don’t naturally suit his skill set. He’s a fantastic midfielder and much more than a play-breaking extraordinaire, but he’s not a creative technician of Eden Hazard, Willian, Pedro or even Kovacic’s category either, and that showed in his return for created chances against Arsenal.
While four remains an impressive statistic on paper, the quality of those chances is another matter altogether and it’s telling that none were converted. In comparison, Arsenal’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan was the only player on the pitch to register more chances made than Kante, but one of his directly resulted in Arsenal’s second goal – a pullback to Alex Iwobi on the edge of the box.
The Chelsea star’s, in contrast, were largely square passes obliging speculative shots from range. Perhaps from the positions Kante got himself into – often darting into the channels either side of Alvaro Morata – he should have made more out of them. It’s a similar story with Kante’s attempts at goal too; while three is a productive return for a midfielder, none actually tested Petr Cech.
But maybe this is what Kante truly offers Chelsea as a more offensive-minded midfield force; not necessarily high-quality scoring opportunities yet nonetheless a copious supply of them – quantity over quality, business over specificity. With a more precise talent alongside him in Kovacic, that offensive energy should really add to this Chelsea team even if it often lacks guile.
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