N’Golo Kante is world class, but he has also become rather injury-prone in recent seasons, those are both facts.
Chelsea always look better when Kante is on the pitch and make no mistake, this is in no way saying that we don’t need Kante in our team, because we absolutely do. There is no other player like Kante and nobody even comes close.
However, it is now a balancing act for Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea and it has become about managing his risk, and rightly so. It can either be a situation like we are seeing this week, where Kante has stayed back either after a knock in training, or simply just to rest him and allow him extra time to recover for the match (we haven’t had official word either way), or taking him to Malmo, playing him and risk then losing him for the game on Saturday and potentially even more important games coming up.
But Chelsea are now in a position where they can afford to manage Kante’s game time and minutes, because the squad depth in his position is deep and quality. Also, the form of Ruben Loftus-Cheek means that we have another solid option to come in and replace Kante, even when like tonight, Mateo Kovacic is injured as well.
Then there is Saul Niguez, who is also starting to show signs of settling in a little better now since his first couple of appearances, so Chelsea have the options and personnel to allow Kante to stay at home during games like tonight, even though it is absolutely a must-win game.
Kante is super important for us, but it is also super important for us to keep him maintained and in the best physical shape possible as he hits his early 30s. I believe it might be wise to do the same for Christian Pulisic moving forward as well, despite him being much younger. Hopefully he will grow out of his injury-prone stages, but until he does he needs to be risk managed just like it appears we are doing for Kante now.
