Chelsea: Kante’s setback another consequence of Sarri’s short-termism
By George Perry
Why are we still talking about Maurizio Sarri a month after he left Chelsea for Juventus? Because N’Golo Kante left the preseason tour to return to London for more intensive injury rehab, that’s why.
Like Louise Mensch leaking an impending indictment for capital barratry, I take no pleasure in reporting this: I was right. Again. N’Golo Kante left Chelsea’s preseason camp in Japan so he could continue rehabbing the injuries he suffered at the end of last season. He trained by himself for an early part of the preseason, but he would not have made the trip if he had not been expected to train with the squad and perhaps take a run-out against Barcelona. This is clearly a setback for his return-to-play progression, and significant hit for Frank Lampard and the Blues.
Like Kante’s injury, this latest development was foreseeable if not predictable. Maurizio Sarri rushed Kante back from his first injury, starting him against Watford and then had to withdraw him 10 minutes into the game. Kante then sat out the Europa League semifinal second leg and the Premier League finale, but was still a 50/50 decision as of the morning of the Europa League final.
He is an indispensable part of the squad, the player no coach ever wants to go into any game – let alone a European final – without.
But Sarri had no plan for playing without Kante. Not only did Sarri not have a plan for facing Watford without Kante, which meant he didn’t have a plan for facing Arsenal without Kante, he didn’t even have a plan for Chelsea to see the game out against Arsenal when up 3-0 in the 65′ or 4-1 in the 72′ in the final.
Kante played the full 90 minutes in Baku, held together by duct tape and uncomplaining determination. That’s enough to get a player through a game. But it deepens their physiological debt, which can be called due at any moment.
Again, the short-term thinking is staggering. Let’s say Maurizio Sarri wasn’t already on Zillow looking for houses in Turin the day before the Watford game or the morning of the Europa League final. He would be the one currently dealing with N’Golo Kante’s absence. He would be the one throwing and kicking his hat in anger that one of his essential players is now questionable for the season opener. And he would have only himself to blame, if he was capable of such self-reflection.
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Coaches, like everyone else, have to make trade-off’s. Taking a risk on a player for a European final is just such a call. Sports are full of stories of injured players coming up with heroics when everything was on the line.
The issue here is less about whether N’Golo Kante should have been playing against Arsenal in the final than why he was in such a compromised state to begin with. Why was he in the Watford game? Why was he so compromised in the weeks leading up to that game? Could any of his 4,000 minutes gone to another player, perhaps someone he played with at both of his Premier League clubs? All the questions I raised in May have been dumped into the laps of Frank Lampard, Chris Jones and the rest of their staff.
Going back to those root causes brings us right to today, and the compromised state he is still in and will be in indefinitely as Chelsea head into another season under a new coach.
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The public health concern about smokers is the impact their selfish, fly-in-the-face-of-science-and-at-this-point-common-sense decisions have on everyone around them. The health effects are not limited to them person making the poor decisions. Everyone around them suffers, even after the smoker leaves with a cloud hanging over his old seat.