Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante is being wasted, he is a level above Jorginho — Alan Shearer’s verdict on Blues’ flagging midfield
French dynamo is being played too far forward and without him in front of the back four the Blues defenders were exposed and abused by Tottenham's forwards
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WHY Maurizio Sarri is not playing N’Golo Kante in front of his back four baffles me.
Without the little French dynamo in that hole, tidying up, tracking runners, it leaves the Chelsea central defenders David Luiz and Antonio Rudiger massively exposed — as Spurs showed to such devastating effect on Saturday night.
Leicester City won the league with Wes Morgan and Robert Huth as their centre-half pairing. Decent defenders but neither are particularly quick.
But their deficiencies were expertly covered up by Kante — the best defensive midfielder in the world bar none. Jorginho is not in the same class.
Kante is wasted playing where he did against Spurs, higher up the park and to the right. He is not an attacking midfielder.
I know Sarri worked with Jorginho at Napoli and trusts him in that holding position but he had a poor night at Wembley.
LOSING HIS MIDAS TOUCH?
N’GOLO KANTE may have made more touches on Saturday compared with his performance last season at Wembley, but our statistics reveal that the Frenchman made 62 per cent of his touches this weekend inside Tottenham’s half (above).
Compare his touch map at Wembley last season (top) — playing in his familiar central midfield role — which shows he made a higher percentage in his own half, providing his protective wall in front of the defence.
The results speak for themselves: Kante and Chelsea won 2-1 last season . . . on Saturday they lost 3-1.
And, as a result, Luiz also had a shocker. He was given the runaround by the brilliant movement of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Son Heung-min.
He was taken to places on the pitch he didn’t want to go.
But that will happen to him if he is not given proper protection in front of him.
That has been apparent to me for a long time.
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Luiz was at fault for all three Spurs goals.
He was dragged out wide for the first when he fouled Harry Kane with a rash tackle.
Chelsea should then have dealt with the dead ball but the initial problem came from the Brazilian.
For the second, I don’t know what he was doing.
Your big, strong centre-half should be throwing everything in the way of that shot to protect and help out his keeper. It wasn’t even a particularly good shot.
Maybe he thought Kepa would save it . . . but better to be safe than sorry.
And for the third, Son was brilliant. It was a great solo goal. But it was poor from Chelsea.
They were in a good position when Son got the ball, four v one. But Luiz was slow to go wide and offer protection to Jorginho. Then he was done too easily when Son cut in.
All season I’ve said if he hasn’t got the protection he can get exposed in a back four. That is why Antonio Conte went to a back five!
But it wasn’t just at the back that Chelsea were poor. The whole team looked tired, leggy and lacking in energy.
The biggest surprise was that they had not lost until now. Alvaro Morata was another who had a stinker.
If I had hair, I’d have been pulling it out watching him constantly running offside.
It was like he did not know the offside law!
Olivier Giroud offered more in ten minutes than the Spaniard had in the previous 80. He was so frustrating.
Eden Hazard was marked out of the game very well by Spurs.
He should have had a penalty — I’m not sure how the ref missed that one — but, other than that, didn’t offer a lot.
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But Spurs were excellent. It is no exaggeration to say they could have scored seven.
Son missed two, Kane missed a sitter — which would have been a wonderful team goal.
Chelsea and Luiz can be grateful it was only three.
But with Kante in his natural home it could have been a very different story.