Chelsea have just one more window to sell N’Golo Kante for full value

Transfer fees are going to plummet in tandem with the global economy. Chelsea may need to take the first available opportunity to cash in on the only world-class player they have left.

Chelsea’s physio room has been a busy place over the last 12 months. Whether it was a ruptured Achilles or a strained hamstring, just about every first-team player has spent some quality time with Dr. Dimitris Kalogiannidis (a name I definitely had to look up). Only Mason Mount, Cesar Azpilicueta, Willian and Jorginho have made at least 35 appearances out of Chelsea’s 42 matches this season. “Injury-plagued” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Of the many, many names on the club’s medical bill, the most surprising is undoubtedly N’Golo Kante. For the majority of his professional career, Kante has been a nearly bulletproof name on the team sheets for club and country. He’s uniquely exceptional as an athlete, a footballer, and, by all counts, a person. As lovable as he is tenacious, Kante has become one of the sport’s greatest rarities: a universally beloved figure.

It’s heartbreaking, then, that his season has been devastated by injuries. He logged only 22 appearances and 1,775 minutes, good for 13th and 10th on the team, respectively.

You can pick from a host of possible causes, ranging from an overly congested footballing calendar to the mismanagement of his original injury by Maurizio Sarri around the Europa League final.

Some things were avoidable, others are inherent parts of football. How Chelsea choose to rank these factors could determine Kante’s future.

Of course, it’s important to look at what Kante has done on the pitch this season as well. To a degree, Kante has made it hard for himself by virtue of setting such an incredibly high bar with the consistency of his excellence over the years.

His role at Leicester City was fairly simple: sit deep, win the ball back, and play it forward. After joining Chelsea, his responsibilities began to increase. Under Antonio Conte, he was primarily a ball-winning defensive midfielder, but he was expected to begin attacks with a bit more tact that just playing out of danger to the nearest teammate. Of course, he took to his new role with the minimum of fuss, and quickly became the Premier League’s best player.

The problems really began when Maurizio Sarri took over at Stamford Bridge in 2018. The switch to a rigid 4-3-3, with Sarri’s muse Jorginho firmly planted in the center of the midfield three, shunted Kante off to one side and even further into attack.

Somehow, Sarri created a role for Kante that not only limited his ability to win the ball back, but also forced him to do even more work to cover for the generally static Jorginho, all while expecting him to contribute his fair share of goals and assists. A brilliant stroke of man management.

To his credit, Kante rose to the challenge. But his exertions finally caught up to him in May, missing the second leg of the Europa League semifinal against Eintracht Frankfurt and the final Premier League game of the season against Leicester with a hamstring injury (an ailment that usually hints at overexertion and fatigue).

After two and half weeks of rest, though, Sarri deemed Kante fit enough to play in the Europa League final against Arsenal. Chelsea joyously hoisted the trophy in Baku, but that final match of the season seemingly took a toll on Kante that he’s still paying for almost a full year later.

After a summer of stop-start recovery, Kante almost literally limped into the season. He came on as a late sub in Chelsea’s 4-0 loss to Manchester United on the first day of the season, before playing 120 minutes against Liverpool in the Super Cup, followed by 90 minutes against Leicester City.

From there, it was a month out with a sprained ankle, then a few weeks of fitness, then another three weeks out, then a run of health from November through the end of the calendar year. Since New Year’s Day, he has only made five appearances. Before the suspension of the season, he had no planned return date.

Regardless of what happens in the coming months, this has been a lost season for Kante. And having just turned 29 at the end of March, it’s time to start wondering if we’re on the downslope of his career now.

Pacey players rarely age well; doubly so if they develop a rash of injuries. Chelsea should be acutely familiar with that scenario from the Fernando Torres era. There is more to Kante’s game than just pace, but his speed and endurance are central to what makes him a unique talent. If Chelsea truly believe that Kante’s best years are behind him, it might be time to cash in.

The “2” at the beginning of 29 is crucial.

Of the top 25 most expensive transfers last summer, no player was 30 or older. Wissam Ben Yedder, Antoine Griezmann, and, of course, Eden Hazard, were the closest at 28. In 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo was the only tricenarian in the top 20 transfers, and it’s probably safe to consider him an outlier.

Suffice to say, this might be Chelsea’s last chance to cash in on a player who would comfortably fall in at least the top 10 transfers of the summer. Given the current squad, Kante is the only player who has a chance of fetching a top-tier return in the near future at all.

The need to make this decision now is compounded further by the potential implications of the global pandemic. In short, the economy is in the tank all over the world, and a recession this severe doesn’t just fix itself in a year. While football is way, way, way down the list of things to worry about in this regard, there’s no denying that the financial side of the sport will be dramatically — and perhaps permanently — altered.

From a fan perspective, that will be most evident in the transfer market.

The scale of acceptable transfer fees was obliterated when Neymar moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for a ghastly £200 million in 2017, a figure that was roughly twice his actual market value at the time. After that landmark deal, transfer fees shot through the roof all over the place. Barcelona reinvested the Neymar cash in Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele for a cool £125 million and £110 million, respectively. They then stumped up another £116 million for Antoine Griezmann last summer.

Barcelona weren’t the only club to lose their minds in the post-Neymar transfer market. Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Juventus, Arsenal, and Bayern Munich all made deals worth over £70 million just last summer. Chelsea weren’t immune either, having activated a £70 million release clause for Kepa Arrizabalaga the summer before.

Unsurprisingly, most of these big-money transfers have failed to live up to the hype so far. But as long as the checks from the television rights holders kept coming in, a bursting of the bubble didn’t seem especially likely.

What no one expected, though, was a complete shutdown of, well, the entire world. For football, the hiatus and potential cancellation of the remainder of the season has broadcasters essentially demanding partial refunds based on the number of games that won’t be played.

In the Premier League alone, broadcasters are looking to recollect over £750 million, which will need to be covered by the clubs.

That stunning figure might even have longer-term ramifications. Live rights for games have always been an absolute must-have for any sports broadcaster, be they ESPN, SkySports, BeIN, or anyone else. The competition for that content meant companies would pay through the nose to secure the deals, and clubs benefitted greatly as a result.

Now, this sudden implosion of sports media and content will likely force broadcasters to rethink their willingness to promise these insane sums of money for a product that doesn’t feel like as much of a guarantee as it used to. It will be a shock to the system of football economics.

So, let’s zoom back in on Chelsea.

You now have an imminent decline in revenue with one valuable asset in N’Golo Kante, and a market of potential buyers who are unsure of how much money they actually have to spend.

In all likelihood, transfer fees are about to come crashing down, and will likely stay that way for a few years as the general economy regains its footing.

In the meantime, there will be a few clubs who think they’re either immune to this financial fallout, or don’t yet understand how badly they’ll be hit. If Chelsea can wring a decent fee out of a Paris Saint-Germain or Real Madrid, they’d be stupid not to do so. This could be the last chance for Chelsea to make a tidy sum for the foreseeable future.

In short, Chelsea have a superstar player who is about to enter his 30’s and is starting to pick up a rash of injuries. The transfer market is teetering on the precipice of a complete collapse, and this summer will probably be the last time clubs will even consider writing nine-digit checks.

All of that points to one conclusion: it’s time to move on from N’Golo Kante. As much as it will hurt, it’s in Chelsea’s best interest.

It could very well be that it’s the best thing for Kante as well. A new system, a new fitness regimen, and, if he leaves England, a less grueling football schedule could all prolong his prime.

Everyone in the footballing world wants to see N’Golo Kante at his best for as long as possible. Unfortunately, that probably can’t happen at Chelsea.