Ngolo Kante 2.0?

Arguably the best defensive midfielder in the world, its safe to say Ngolo Kante’s responsibilities on the pitch has changed… or has it?

The 2017 French Player of the Year and 2017–18 Chelsea player of the Year known for his defensive midfield qualities has been under the microscope probably for the first time ever in his career. His primary attributes have been pressing the opposition when they’re in possession in his team’s half and winning back possession (remember these qualities).

Kante scored the match winner in the recent away game at Crystal Palace. Let us rewind the clock to the 2016–17 title winning season under Antonio Conte. The game ended with the same 1–0 score line in favor of Chelsea, but that’s not what we’re interested in. Kante was once again his brilliant self in protecting the back three and cutting out most of the attacks. Positionally he was like a free roaming “search and destroy” player as shown by his heat map here:

A quick look at his usual tackles, interception, blocks and touches stats:

It is clear that most of his defensive work happens in his own half. He senses danger and quickly moves to eliminate it.

In this new system under Maurizio Sarri, Ngolo plays a more advanced role on the right side of a three man midfield. Sarri’s game plan and tactics hinge on pressing high up the pitch, winning the ball and moving it quickly into attacking positions. As stated before, Kante is already one of the best, if not the best at 2 out of 3 of those things. Majority of concerns, criticism and question marks in the early part of the season were about his ability to move the ball quickly in attack. As the season has progressed, Kante has adapted and learned this quality needed to play in his team’s new system. One classic example was the win against Manchester City, but every single player was on top of their game that day, so let’s look at his heat map from the away win at Crystal Palace this season:

Sarri has time and again insisted that Kante must remain on the right side of midfield and not drift into other parts of the pitch. He even mentioned this in the post-match presser after the 3–1 loss to Spurs earlier this season. Kante has definitely worked on that and stuck to his role brilliantly as evident from the above image. Let us look at his stats again and see how they have changed:

While Kante has benefited from the new system by enjoying nearly 70% more touches, majority of them have come in the opposition half as opposed to his own. His defensive stats like tackles, interceptions and blocks have remained about the same, but a key point to note is where on the pitch they have occurred. Under Conte, most of his contribution was in his own half whereas in this new system, it happens higher up the pitch. He is winning the ball back in areas where he can start attacks immediately and preventing opposition attacks even before they start. This is backed by numbers — Azpilicueta and Rudiger who play on the right side of defense have a combined 5.0 clearances per game compared to Alonso and Luiz’s 7.4 per game on the left side of defense. Earlier this season Azpilicueta was not doing that great, he was lunging into challenges and constantly being double teamed. This was the exact time when Kante was drifting all over the pitch as he still had not adapted to his new role. Ever since he has started playing into the system and sticking to his position, there has a been a direct improvement in Azpilicueta’s performance as well.

There have been a lot of question marks about Kante’s position in this system and some have even gone to the extent of wanting to bench him to play a more attack minded midfielder. This is mainly due to lack of goals from a recognized striker and a man-to-man comparison between Sarri’s Napoli team with people equating the roles of Hazard, Perdo to Mertens and Callejon, etc.This comparison will not work with Kante simply because there is no one like him in the world at the moment. Despite all this, he has 3 goals which is as much as the more attack minded Barkley, Loftus-Cheek and Willian have scored. Clearly showing that he is willing to learn, adapt and add new qualities to his game.

To conclude, Kante’s responsibilities have not drastically changed, rather it has increased. Instead of performing his duties of ‘A’ in his own half, he is now doing ‘A+B’ in the opposition half. Just like how Kante has had to adapt his game to the system, Sarri’s perseverance with Kante in the side is showing that Sarri is adapting his system to include one of the best midfielders in the world at the moment. Most importantly, as many Chelsea fans already know, managers come, managers go, but players stay longer (at least at Chelsea). So please be patient and continue to support this world class player while he transitions into the new system.

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