N'Golo Kante | Chelsea Player

[Jeffthered]

Kante wins the ball back, competes, breaks up opponents play, and gets his team playingp argubly better than any other midfielder in world football.

Talk of him being Championship player, is ridiculous. His touch is good, he's an intelligent player who knows his limitations. Sarri wants him in in more advanced position than Jorginho. In time, it may work. But regardless, he is a class act, and a player who genuinely affects games.

 

[ivaldo]

Kante wins the ball back, competes, breaks up opponents play, and gets his team playingp argubly better than any other midfielder in world football.

Talk of him being Championship player, is ridiculous. His touch is good, he's an intelligent player who knows his limitations. Sarri wants him in in more advanced position than Jorginho. In time, it may work. But regardless, he is a class act, and a player who genuinely affects games.

No one is saying he's a championship footballer ffs. If you're going to jump in and call someones opinion ridiculous, at least had the sense to read whats been written first.

 

[Jeffthered]

'But despite that the notion is right, Kante would struggle in Herreras role. As a ball winner he's excellent, but ask him to do anything with it and he'll perform well below the required level. His touch, passing, vision and shooting is Championship standard. Either facilitate him with the right partners in midfield or don't play him at all...'

From a previous post.

Doesn't matter anyway. Just posting opinion, no time for such dismissive responses. People need to chill. It's Friday.

 

[ivaldo]

'But despite that the notion is right, Kante would struggle in Herreras role. As a ball winner he's excellent, but ask him to do anything with it and he'll perform well below the required level. His touch, passing, vision and shooting is Championship standard. Either facilitate him with the right partners in midfield or don't play him at all...'

From a previous post.

Doesn't matter anyway. Just posting opinion, no time for such dismissive responses. People need to chill. It's Friday.

He's a world class ball winner.

From a previous post. There's no post where I've said he's a championship player, is there?

Dismissive responses? Like calling someones opinion ridiculous, despite completely misjudging what that opinion was? And instead of saying, "sorry, my mistake," you say you've got no time...

 

[crossy1686]

Kante is the player I was hoping Fred would be...

 

[MackRobinson]

Yes it is. When you're trying to prove to me Kante is technically proficient to play in this more advanced role where ball winning is no longer his priority, a video thats almost year old, prior to when he was playing this role and was a ball winner isn't the best evidence. It's baffling why you were so smug about posting it.

It's almost universally accepted that Kante is being played out of position at the moment. It's not making use of his best abilities, and that's reflected in the wealth of average to poor performances weve seen so far this season. You understand what Kante is being asked to do in this role, yes? He simply doesn't have to tools to effect the game regularly enough while playing here. Do I think a manager would prefer Herrera to Kante in THIS role? Absolutely. That's clear from how both players play, and if stats are your thang, almost every stat is in his favour too. Defensive turn over per 90 is 9 to 3 in Herreras favour. Herrera has also created more, more key passes, more assists, he's been dispossessed half as much, more forward passes, more passes completed and averages more goals per 90. This while playing deeper than Kante and spending half the season under Jose.

Why do you keep dancing around what you said?

But despite that the notion is right, Kante would struggle in Herreras role. As a ball winner he's excellent, but ask him to do anything with it and he'll perform well below the required level. His touch, passing, vision and shooting is Championship standard. Either facilitate him with the right partners in midfield or don't play him at all.

You were talking about his touch, passing, and shooting in general. Not specific to the role. You said he couldn't play Herrera's role b/c his techincal abilites are championship quality. This is what I'm responding to directly.

PER 90 minute stats?

Many years back, I became extremely interested in basketball analytics (Sabermetics, Dean Oliver, etc) and you are making one of the most obvious mistakes in interpreting per minute stats that many other made (in basketball circles it was PER 36 minutes). To put your stats in context, Herrera has played 1/3 of the minutes of Kante and 29%(5/17) of his appearances have come from the bench, compared to less than 3%(1/36). Kante averages around 86 min/match while Herrera is at 64. The impact of fatigue from playing more minutes and the fresh legs from sub appearances aren't considered in the stats you posted.

Please use stats you actually understand next time.

 

[ivaldo]

You are having a shocker here. You are repeatedly shifting goalposts, and when called out, you are resorting to insults like "can't read, can't comprehend", etc. It doesn't need to be a Chelsea fan to see Kante is elite class. Peace out, carry on with your agenda on how Herrera is better than Kante.

Shifting goal posts. I'm actually quoting what I originally put. I elaborate on it, and then we have another poster respond, entirely ignoring the context of the post and conflate two very distinct points. Good to see you've continued the trend. And we've got our first A bomb! Don't agree with a post? It's an Agenda! Chow.

 

[JPRouve]

While I disagree with @ivaldo, Kanté's vision and touch are pretty good that's why he is able to win the ball and quickly put better technicians in an ideal position. But what Ivaldo said doesn't mean that Kanté is a championship player, he simply isolated characteristics and rated them as championship level, I also think that it's a terrible way of rating qualities because "Championship level" means nothing, the overall level of a player is based on his overall qualities not on the isolated level of his skills which can be pretty good, free style players have elite skills but they can't play professional football. An other example, PL level ball header isn't a thing.

 

[Mb194dc]

Kante wins the ball back, competes, breaks up opponents play, and gets his team playingp argubly better than any other midfielder in world football.

Talk of him being Championship player, is ridiculous. His touch is good, he's an intelligent player who knows his limitations. Sarri wants him in in more advanced position than Jorginho. In time, it may work. But regardless, he is a class act, and a player who genuinely affects games.

Agree with this.

Pretty conclusively so far this season, 4 3 3 with Kante in the advanced right midfield position does work very well against teams who also want to get on the ball have possession and push us back. City, Spurs, Liverpool games at home as examples. It also works mainly against the weaker teams in the premier league.

It hasn't worked though against Arsenal / Spurs away, where we dominated possession, had far more passes but got hammered. Also when we fell behind to Leicester / Wolves we just didn't create much despite absolutely dominating possession and passes.

Remains to be seen if having Higuain / or Giroud instead of false 9 will make Kante in this position more effective or not in these situations, or if we adapt tactically to make it work better.

 

[ivaldo]

Why do you keep dancing around what you said?


You were talking about his touch, passing, and shooting in general. Not specific to the role. You said he could play Herrera's role b/c his techincal abilites are championship quality. This is what I'm responding to directly.

PER 90 minute stats?

Many years back, I became extremely interested in basketball analytics (Sabermetics, Dean Oliver, etc) and you are making one of the most obvious mistakes in interpreting per minute stats that many other made (in basketball circles it was PER 36 minutes). To put your stats in context, Herrera has played 1/3 of the minutes of Kante and 29%(5/17) of his appearances have come from the bench, compared to less than 3%(1/36). Kante averages around 86 min/match while Herrera is at 64. The impact of fatigue from playing more minutes and the fresh legs from sub appearances aren't considered in the stats you posted.

Please use stats you actually understand next time.

Really? You say I'm not talking about a specific role, and then in the very next sentence you accept I'm talking about Herreras role. This is WUM level.

Directly quoting myself is dancing is it? No matter how much you try to conflate what I've said, it's right there to read.

Yes per 90 minutes. As opposed to per game and totals. It's not ideal, no set of stats are, being a stat man you'd know this, but it's the fairest assessment available. There's mitigating circumstances on both sides. Players take time to impact a game, often games are dead when they come on, Herrera was playing under Jose in a torrid time at our club. Thankfully, we have previous years stats to go by. Be my guest, have a peak. It's not hard. If you aren't going to contribute anything to the conversation, then don't bother responding next time.

 

[ivaldo]

While I disagree with @ivaldo, Kanté's vision and touch are pretty good that's why he is able to win the ball and quickly put better technicians in an ideal position. But what Ivaldo said doesn't mean that Kanté is a championship player, he simply isolated characteristics and rated them as championship level, I also think that it's a terrible way of rating qualities because "Championship level" means nothing, the overall level of a player is based on his overall qualities not on the isolated level of his skills which can be pretty good, free style players have elite skills but they can't play professional football. An other example, PL level ball header isn't a thing.

Perfectly acceptable response. No need to call anything ridiculous or spam smileys. Take note Mack.

Perhaps it was a crude way of putting it, but to me the reason why Kante is playing and succeeding in the Premier League is because of his ball winning ability, his reading of the game, and his relentless defensive work rate. The way Sarri deploys Kante marginalises his strengths, while forcing him to do things he doesn't excel in. This version of Kante isn't good enough. The ball winning Kante is world class.

 

[charlenefan]

Kante is the player I was hoping Fred would be...

You obviously never saw Fred play then

 

[MackRobinson]

Really? You say I'm not talking about a specific role, and then in the very next sentence you accept I'm talking about Herreras role. This is WUM level.

This isn't that hard to comprehend. You claimed his ability on the ball was the reason he would struggle in Herrera's role (I literally chuckle every time I type that), but you are trying to shift goalposts and act as if you were ONLY talking about his role. Again so you don't forget.

As a ball winner he's excellent, but ask him to do anything with it and he'll perform well below the required level. His touch, passing, vision and shooting is Championship standard.

That is NOT specific to his role, but to his general ability on the ball.

Yes per 90 minutes. As opposed to per game and totals. It's not ideal, no set of stats are, being a stat man you'd know this, but it's the fairest assessment available. There's mitigating circumstances on both sides. Players take time to impact a game, often games are dead when they come on, Herrera was playing under Jose in a torrid time at our club. Thankfully, we have previous years stats to go by. Be my guest, have a peak. It's not hard. If you aren't going to contribute anything to the conversation, then don't bother responding next time.

No it's not. It's extremely flawed as I pointed out. You provided the evidence, so it's your job to provide context. If you don't understand the pitfalls of using per minutes stats to compare players who play a different volume of minutes and play at very different times during the game, then I'm not sure why you're still pretending you know what you're talking about.

This is getting boring.

 

[MackRobinson]

Perfectly acceptable response. No need to call anything ridiculous or spam smileys. Take note Mack.

1) Never said you said he was Championship level player. I've reiterated that several times by focusing on his perceived lack of skill
2) Never called you names either. I did say your claim was "absurd and inane" and you didn't understand the context of the stats you posted. I stand by that, but if you think that's harsh apologies
3) I'm averaging about a smiley a post in this exchange. Hardly spamming

Officially bored. Cheers.

 

[crossy1686]

You obviously never saw Fred play then

This is true. I just heard great things about him.

 

[Righteous Steps]

Ivaldo is right in a way, the reason he is a top player is mostly due to his ball winning and physical attributes, isolated his ball playing ability is nothing special and there are host of footballers and midfielders in the premier league who could claim to be more technically proficient.

 

[SteveW]

1) Never said you said he was Championship level player. I've reiterated that several times by focusing on his perceived lack of skill
2) Never called you names either. I did say your claim was "absurd and inane" and you didn't understand the context of the stats you posted. I stand by that, but if you think that's harsh apologies
3) I'm averaging about a smiley a post in this exchange. Hardly spamming

Officially bored. Cheers.

It's not worth the effort. Discussions with ivaldo always end this way in my experience. He'll make some daft point, defend it through relentless stubborness and eventually end up resorting to semantics, shifting goal posts or implying you're an idiot. Previous crimes I've committed were saying Daley Blind was not a top class CB or that Jose did a bad job here.

 

[Pagh Wraith]

Can we change ivaldo's tag line to championship-level horse whisperer?

 

[ivaldo]

This isn't that hard to comprehend. You claimed his ability on the ball was the reason he would struggle in Herrera's role (I literally chuckle every time I type that), but you are trying to shift goalposts and act as if you were ONLY talking about his role. Again so you don't forget.


That is NOT specific to his role, but to his general ability on the ball.


No it's not. It's extremely flawed as I pointed out. You provided the evidence, so it's your job to provide context. If you don't understand the pitfalls of using per minutes stats to compare players who play a different volume of minutes and play at very different times during the game, then I'm not sure why you're still pretending you know what you're talking about.

This is getting boring.

Good for you. It's like you've cocooned yourself to the narrative around Kante at this time. Sarri's management of the team is being doubted, and a large aspect of that is his misuse of Kante. If Kante was performing to standard, contributing to the team in the way that he should be, then this wouldn't be discussed. He can't because he simply isnt suited to it.

You're never going to get entirely comparable stats, with absolutely no variables in football. It's a weak ass defense to damning evidence. As I said, you're welcome to look beyond this season for comparables, you I'll find much the same. You won't though.


And here's the crux of it. You're downplaying my reference to a specific role?

But despite that the notion is right, Kante would struggle in Herreras role.

It's the first bloody line of my post! Who's shifting the goalposts?

1) Never said you said he was Championship level player. I've reiterated that several times by focusing on his perceived lack of skill
2) Never called you names either. I did say your claim was "absurd and inane" and you didn't understand the context of the stats you posted. I stand by that, but if you think that's harsh apologies
3) I'm averaging about a smiley a post in this exchange. Hardly spamming

Officially bored. Cheers.

It's been the basis for this nonsensical debate for several posts now, with which you regurgitate the same, conflated conclusions to two very distinct points of view. It's been pointed out to you but soldier on. At times I've written exactly what I wrote in my original post, and you claim I'm dancing around it.

Finally, we agree on something.

 

[JPRouve]

Ivaldo is right in a way, the reason he is a top player is mostly due to his ball winning and physical attributes, isolated his ball playing ability is nothing special and there are host of footballers and midfielders in the premier league who could claim to be more technically proficient.

Only a host of forwards and attacking midfielders could make that claim that's where the claim is wrong. Also it's important to understand what "ball winning" means because I feel that people use that term in a way that diminishes a player's image. To be an elite ball winner, you need to be great in transition which means that you need to be great at reading the game, anticipate, position yourself, tackle, control the ball and recycle it, these players have to be clean from a touch and pass stand point, they may not have a large passing range or wow anyone but they are above average because they are extremely consistent from a technical standpoint and great from a mental standpoint.

 

[El Jefe]

Back to back PL winning central midfielder and a world cup winner.

He must be on PED's if he can win these trophies despite having championship level touch, vision and passing in a role that will horribly expose those flaws.

We all talk bollocks from time to time. Its okay to admit when wrong.

 

[Trizy]

Can't read. Try again.

I've questioned his ability on the ball and you've posted a video that specifically mentions his ability off the ball... good work Einstein.

 

[ivaldo]

Can we change ivaldo's tag line to championship-level horse whisperer?

Id like that.

 

[ivaldo]

It's not worth the effort. Discussions with ivaldo always end this way in my experience. He'll make some daft point, defend it through relentless stubborness and eventually end up resorting to semantics, shifting goal posts or implying you're an idiot. Previous crimes I've committed were saying Daley Blind was not a top class CB or that Jose did a bad job here.

 

[settembrini]

Kante is the player I was hoping Fred would be...

Kante is better but they are similar players. Both excellent defensive midfielders who are struggling this season (Fred a lot more than Kante ofc) because they are being asked to contribute more than they should when their team has the ball.

 

[JPRouve]

Kante is better but they are similar players. Both excellent defensive midfielders who are struggling this season (Fred a lot more than Kante ofc) because they are being asked to contribute more than they should when their team has the ball.

Fred has never been a defensive midfielder.

 

[Canagel]

Kante is the player I was hoping Fred would be...

They're different players.

 

[kouroux]

While I disagree with @ivaldo, Kanté's vision and touch are pretty good that's why he is able to win the ball and quickly put better technicians in an ideal position. But what Ivaldo said doesn't mean that Kanté is a championship player, he simply isolated characteristics and rated them as championship level, I also think that it's a terrible way of rating qualities because "Championship level" means nothing, the overall level of a player is based on his overall qualities not on the isolated level of his skills which can be pretty good, free style players have elite skills but they can't play professional football. An other example, PL level ball header isn't a thing.

This.
Criticizing for the sake of it is what it is basically.

 

[settembrini]

Fred has never been a defensive midfielder.

He played there for Shaktar.

 

[ivaldo]

This.
Criticizing for the sake of it is what it is basically.

Come on. Why for the sake of it? Wouldn't you say this at least contributes to why he hasn't been as effective in his new role this season? You might not agree with the level in which I've stated his technical ability is at, but it's without doubt a contributing factor. No?

 

[JPRouve]

He played there for Shaktar.

No, he was a box to box and before that an attacking midfielder.

 

[kouroux]

Come on. Why for the sake of it? Wouldn't you say this at least contributes to why he hasn't been as effective in his new role this season? You might not agree with the level in which I've stated his technical ability is at, but it's without doubt a contributing factor. No?

This debate has already been done by you and other posters. The main reason he hasn't been as effective for me is because of his crazy manager. Kante is doing as well as he can.

 

[Ban]

It seems criticizing Kante for whatever is a big no no around here.

 

[JPRouve]

Come on. Why for the sake of it? Wouldn't you say this at least contributes to why he hasn't been as effective in his new role this season? You might not agree with the level in which I've stated his technical ability is at, but it's without doubt a contributing factor. No?

This point seems to be more about the match between his main tools and the role that Sarri is giving him. If that's the point that you are trying to make then your initial post seems misguided, if a manager uses Pogba as a DM, you don't look at Pogba and claim that his tools are championship level.

 

[ivaldo]

This point seems to be more about the match between his main tools and the role that Sarri is giving him. If that's the point that you are trying to make then your initial post seems misguided, if a manager uses Pogba as a DM, you don't look at Pogba and claim that his tools are championship level.

If someone plays Pogba in a role that is focussed on him winning the ball back, then yes, I would say the same thing. His defensive tools arent good enough for the league, if that's his main role within the team. He'd be wasted, as Kante is currently being wasted.

 

[settembrini]

No, he was a box to box and before that an attacking midfielder.

I never saw him play before Shaktar. In every game I watched him play for Shaktar he played deep alongside Stepanenko. You can check this this by looking at position maps for their games on whoscored.com.

If you have the time you could also watch this 17m scout report video on Fred.


It talks a lot about his defensive role for Shaktar in terms of tackling and pressing the opposition and how he contributes to their play from deep positions.

If the above is not what you mean by 'defensive midfielder' then you are using a different definition of that term to me, possibly using it mean someone who has a very static role, more like a 3rd centre back. I consider that an extremely limited definition and it's not what I mean when I use it to describe mobile ball winners like Fred and Kante.

 

[JPRouve]

I never saw him play before Shaktar. In every game I watched him play for Shaktar he played deep alongside Stepanenko. You can check this this by looking at position maps for their games on whoscored.com.

If you have the time you could also watch this 17m scout report video on Fred.


It talks a lot about his defensive role for Shaktar in terms of tackling and pressing the opposition and how he contributes to their play from deep positions.

If the above is not what you mean by 'defensive midfielder' then you are using a different definition of that term to me, possibly using it mean someone who has a very static role, more like a 3rd centre back. I consider that an extremely limited definition and it's not what I mean when I use it to describe mobile ball winners like Fred and Kante.

I have watched him play for Shakhtar and their DM is and was Stepanenko. Even Fernandinho wasn't a DM for them.

 

[ivaldo]

It seems criticizing Kante for whatever is a big no no around here.

Yup.

 

[Ban]

Yup.

Can't criticize Kante, can't say Spurs bottled it, what times eh?

 

[JPRouve]

If someone plays Pogba in a role that is focussed on him winning the ball back, then yes, I would say the same thing. His defensive tools arent good enough for the league, if that's his main role within the team. He'd be wasted, as Kante is currently being wasted.

To me it would be more accurate to say that his tools aren't a good match for the role because in reality Pogba and Kanté worse attributes are still average to above average in the league. "Not good enough for the league" is a statement that has no reality, particularly when you are talking about a player that is still playing at a good level for a top tier PL team. The issue is that just that when you judge him against himself in a different role, he is currently not at his best.