Chelsea rootball Club’s summer might not be off to the best of starts on the pitch, but transaction wise, the club have done well having added Michy Batshuayi earlier this summer, and now N’Golo Kante.
Kante is set to join the London club after a Premier League winning season with Leicester City, signing a five-year contract. Kante, 25, is joining a side Antonio Conte described as having a “very, very bad season,” and while the fix might not be immediate, especially with Conte set to employ a new system, we should expect to see Kante have an immediate impact.
Speaking after Chelsea’s 2-0 loss to Rapid Vienna to open their preseason campaign, Conte called Kante “a good player,” who possesses “good technique, fantastic stamina and I like this type of player.“
Kante comes to Chelsea possessing one thing that the side heavily lacked last season, a season that saw them finish 31 points off the top of the table; a box-to-box presence.
In their 2015 Premier League winning season, Chelsea’s midfield core was built around Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic. When that core fell apart last season, Chelsea proved uninspiring for the most part, barring small glimpses of hope from either player. Now, Chelsea has young talent up front in Michy Batshuayi, who should relieve pressure off of Diego Costa, a revived Eden Hazard, and defensive reinforcements potentially coming in in the form of Kalidou Koulibaly.
While hopes were slashed of a Radja Nainggolan, N’Golo Kante midfield duo due to the former wanting to stay in Italy, it is expected that Kante will partner Cesc Fabregas in the heart of Chelsea’s midfield, and this could be the exact move needed in order to revitalize the Spanish midfielder.
Utilizing Kante’s heat map from Leicester’s 2-1 loss to Arsenal last season on February 16, we are able to see the exact ability that he brings to Chelsea.
Kante, at the very least, is able to provide a side with a box-to-box threat working diligently to give the more attacking threats, more flexibility.
In the 2014/2015 season, when Nemanja Matic was there to fulfill this role, Fabregas thrived as he made 48 total appearances, totaling six goals and 24 assists. The next season, in 49 appearances, Fabregas was able to total six goals yet again for the season, but saw his assist total drop to 11 on the season. Without a midfielder who can track back while also provide an attacking threat, Fabregas’ on-ball creativity is stunted, and evidently, can’t be the playmaker that players such as Eden Hazard need to thrive.
Outside of being a box-to-box threat, Kante is a player not afraid to make contact. Last season, Kante made 175 tackles in the Premier League, 31 more than the player behind him, and 156 interceptions, 15 more than the player behind him. Taking that into account, Kante posted a 92% passing accuracy, in which 70.1% of the passes he made last season being in the forward direction.
In the signing, Conte is bringing a work horse into what proved to be a very lethargic Chelsea midfield for much of last season.
Comparing Kante to last year’s midfield, Nemanja Matic made 63 tackles and 67 interceptions in 33 games, John Obi Mikel, made 37 tackles and 32 interceptions in 25 games and Cesc Fabregas made 76 tackles and 23 interceptions in those aforementioned 49 games.
Coming in from the French league last season, in just one season praise has been heaped on Kante as Sir Alex Ferguson said “N’Golo Kante is by far the best player in the Premier League this season,” while Arsene Wenger called the French international a “huge force.”
If you think last season is a fluke for Kante as well, you’re wrong there. In his final season in France before joining Leicester, Kante posted 178 tackles and 110 interceptions. Nobody has made as many tackles (353) or interceptions (266) as him over the last two seasons in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga or Ligue 1.
Important, but to a lesser degree, the signing opens to the door for Chelsea to potentially unload Nemanja Matic with Juventus reportedly in hot pursuit of the Serbian midfielder.
N’Golo Kante is one of the top midfielders the Premier League has to offer and Chelsea have now significantly strengthened their midfield for what might be the deal of the summer. The moves are not done for Chelsea, though, with the team still looking at defensive options and potentially a striker, but the Conte era is officially underway with two big signings in Batshuayi and Kante.
