Chelsea: Sarrismo has no place for a fully defensive N’Golo Kante

N’Golo Kante has embraced his role as Chelsea’s box-to-box midfielder. Unless Maurizio Sarri ventures into new tactical realms, Kante is not going back to his previous station.

Let’s start with what we know. First, Maurizio Sarri favours the 4-3-3 to the exclusion of almost any other formation. He used it for most of his time at Empoli and all of his time at Napoli. He introduced it on day one at Chelsea, and even as the Blues will occasionally strike a 4-1-4-1 or 4-2-3-1, those are fluid formations in and out of the 4-3-3.

Second, without Jorginho as deep-lying playmaker, there is no Sarrismo at Chelsea. If Sarri had not been able to bring Jorginho with him, well, he may not have taken the job. But if he had come to Stamford Bridge alone, his estimate for Chelsea playing at Liverpool’s level would be more than the single year he quoted after the draw at West Ham. Jorginho’s passing provides the temporal and spatial framework for Sarrismo, accompanied by his explicit on-pitch instructions for his teammates to fill in that framework as best they can. Jorginho could not have this effect if he was in any other role, nor could any other player have his effect in the deep-lying playmaker role. Not now, not yet, not for a while.

Against this backdrop, N’Golo Kante. Sarri’s system does not employ a traditional central defensive midfielder, and the deepest midfield spot is already taken. This leaves only option: repurpose Kante into another position.

The club or coach who would dismiss N’Golo Kante  – not sell him because of an incomparable offer, but dismiss him for squad-level tactical reasons – does not exist except in fiction. I’ve seen some stupid things in my day, both in football and out, and yet I cannot believe there is such a club or coach.

Of the two remaining midfield roles in Sarri’s schema, the box-to-box midfielder suits Kante best. The name itself makes one reason obvious: the player has to cover a wide range of the pitch. Kante already does that. Now he needs to initiate and cover transitions, and be versatile on both sides of the play.

Kante has the physical capabilities and the defensive skills, requiring development only in the offensive elements and the specifics of implementing the role. The third midfielder is too far forward and insufficiently defensive for Kante’s talents.

N’Golo Kante is not yet, and may never be, the perfect box-to-box midfielder. But he is already stronger than any other option at Chelsea and most other options available in the transfer market. Similarly, although he is not dedicating himself to defensive midfield, he still has many responsibilities in that realm. Kante as a box-to-box midfielder only shaves about 10% off his contribution to defensive midfield.

N’Golo Kante as a box-to-box midfielder – leaving him at 90% of his best – can do more for Chelsea’s midfield defence than all but a half-dozen central defensive midfielders in the world. Ninety-percent of N’Golo Kante would still be starting at a top four team in a big five league, and he still would have started for France all the way through their World Cup win.

The same does not apply to Jorginho. Taking Jorginho out of the deep-lying playmaker role and assigning him elsewhere in the 4-3-3 or changing the formation would slash what he brings to the team. Such a move would take far more out of his game – and therefore out of Chelsea’s game – than Kante experiences as a box-to-box midfielder.

Jorginho’s relative lack of versatility gives his role the job security that N’Golo Kante does not need. The closest option would be for him to play further forward in Cesc Fabregas territory. But there his passes would need to be select and incisive, rather than rhythmic and geared towards possession. He could almost certaintly learn to do it, but it would come at a much greater loss of his contribution to the team, and therefore of the team’s already-limited ability to execute Sarrismo. The move would reset the team’s learning curve until someone came up to Jorginho’s level as deep-lying playmaker and Jorginho came up to the necessary level in the forward creative role.

If Maurizio Sarri is unsatisfied with N’Golo Kante as the box-to-box midfielder, he must overhaul one of the two tenets we opened this article with. The most likely option would be to veer away from the 4-3-3 into a system that allows N’Golo Kante and Jorginho each to play their archtypal position.

The 4-2-3-1 would be the least dramatic choice, especially as Chelsea already show this formation at times. But employing the 4-2-3-1 full-time would require Jorginho or Kante to become the pivot of the midfield, similar to Nemanja Matic. Kante would again be best suited for the role, as Jorginho very much likes to keep the game in front of him. But this would distract from Kante’s defensive midfield duties as much as the box-to-box role does, even if it does keep Kante closer to the defensive line

The 4-2-3-1 would also require Chelsea to change their pressing system. If Kante is staying deep near Jorginho, then the line of three – Eden Hazard, Pedro and Ross Barkley / Mateo Kovacic – take responsibility for the press. They lose the box-to-box midfielder’s contribution, as well as Kante’s unique ability to press and counter-press and still recover into his defensive position before the opposition much across midfield.

If the West Ham draw is the beginning of an extended slump or tail spin, Maurizio Sarri may need something more dramatic, something truly unprecedented in his managerial career. This article is being published on the two-year anniversary of That Game Against Arsenal That Changed Everything. Only by working on the scale of Antonio Conte’s shift to the 3-4-3 could Sarri perhaps keep Jorginho and Kante in their standard roles and still have an effective XI.

But that assumes N’Golo Kante even wants his old job back. Since keeping players happy is the order of the day under Maurizio Sarri, Kante is visibly happier as the box-to-box midfielder. He was nearly despondent playing in Didier Deschamps’ 4-2-3-1 after only four games as Maurizio Sarri’s box-to-box.

In That Game Against Arsenal That Changed Everything, Antonio Conte started the process of making an anonymous journeyman from Bolton, Sunderland and Fiorentina into Europe’s best left wing-back and left-back. By comparison, Maurizio Sarri’s move to make N’Golo Kante a highly effective box-to-box midfielder is tame.

The least Chelsea fans can do is let the experiment play out. To do otherwise is to limit N’Golo Kante to what he has already been doing. Maurizio Sarri is in enough danger of self-limiting. We should not do the same for one of his most valuable players.