N’Golo Kante : How The Defensive Midfielder Has Evolved to Suit The Modern Game

After enjoying a record-breaking 12 game unbeaten start to life in the Premier League, Maurizio Sarri has suffered two defeats in his last three games and faces a daunting match-up against Manchester City this weekend.

The first cracks in ‘Sarriball’ are starting to show. Sarri’s honeymoon period in west London is over after four months and while a dip in results in the short-term was inevitable given the unexpectedly excellent start Chelsea made to the season, longer-term issues are starting to manifest: the N’Golo Kante quandary, chief among them.

Kante has worked exclusively alongside Italian managers during his three and a half years in England but while Claudio Ranieri and Antonio Conte made him the centrepiece of their title-winning teams, Sarri has shifted his position in order to accommodate his star pupil, Jorginho.

The idea was to build a team around the playmaking qualities of the Brazilian-born metronome and utilise Kante’s Duracell Bunny stamina in a box-to-box role, but there have been undeniable teething problems with both players caught out in the defeat to Spurs and Kante taken off against Wolves.

Sarri criticised Kante for his technical limitations following the loss to Spurs at Wembley, saying: ‘I think, as you know, I want to play a central midfielder as a very technical player, a Jorginho or [Cesc] Fabregas. I don’t want Kante in this position.’ Sarri’s stance seems more radical because it is Kante who has been sacrificed.

Not only is Kante arguably the best at what he does in world football, he’s also extremely popular. An affront to Kante, a man who loves riding bicycles, is too shy to lift the World Cup and actively avoids funneling his salary into an offshore tax haven, is an affront to everyone.