A lot has been said about Frank Lampard’s ‘problems’ this season, where he faces the issues of fitting all his best players in the same starting line up. And one of those questions is going to need to be answered very soon with the return of N’Golo Kante.
The France World Cup winner is described as ‘world class’ by his Chelsea boss and he is ready to return to the Chelsea fold once again after niggling injury issues.
Lampard’s ‘problem’ is that his deeper midfield two Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho have been playing so well together and have formed a very good partnership.
Kante of course has the ability to play anywhere in midfield but you’d probably see him ideally playing where Kovacic is right now, just ahead of Jorginho.
So how do you fit all three in your starting eleven? Lampard has been addressing this in an interview with Jim White on Talk Sport this morning.
He said:
“Firstly, he [N’Golo Kante] is a fantastic player and one of the players when I came in I was so excited to work with, because I have loved him from afar as a Chelsea fan.
“I will need him, because he is world class – there is no doubt about it.
“His attributes and what he brings can’t be talked down just because we are in a good moment at the minute.
“It is brilliant for us that he is back.
“We have had to be a bit careful with him because he had a difficult start to the season. He had a lot of niggles because he’s been used a lot to amazing effect in four years and it was maybe time just to take a little bit of a back step.
“But hopefully he is going to be massive for us.
“One thing we have done this year is try to be adaptable, which means sometimes there are changes in personnel or the shape of the team.
“There is not one of them midfielders [Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho] that you can say ‘Ok, he is just a number ten or can only do that’. They can all do a lot.
“So in terms of how they rotate and work together, that is something we always work on and whoever I pick there when they are all fit you like to think they will give you a good performance.”
