Why N'Golo Kante is not the player Maurizio Sarri thinks he is

That N'Golo Kante's new £300-000-a-week Chelsea contract was met with barely even the slightest surprise is a clear indication of his standing in English football.

This is one of the modern-day greats. Already, he has as many Premier League titles as some huge names, including Thierry Henry, Eden Hazard and the player whose throne many consider him the heir to, Claude Makelele.

Maurizio Sarri's decision to reinvent Kante, then, upon arriving at Chelsea this summer, seems an odd one.

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Kante won both of his titles - and the World Cup this summer - as a defensive midfielder whose primary task was regaining possession and launching attacks through quick transitions of play. Few others in the game do this anything like as effectively as Kante.

Chelsea's new manager has brought a far more possession-heavy style of play to the club than his predecessor, Antonio Conte, or than the Leicester or France teams Kante won trophies with. With a 67.2 per cent share of possession, there is less need for Kante's ball-winning exploits, and you can understand Sarri's assertion that Kante is not the technical player needed for the quarterback-like role at the base of midfield occupied by Jorginho.

However, Sarri's decision to call out Kante's positioning against Tottenham last week is baffling considering he is clearly being asked to play in a more advanced position these days. And as Heung-min Son so ruthlessly showed at Wembley, both Jorginho and the current Chelsea set-up have genuine defensive deficiencies, even if  they were unbeaten in the league up until that game.

Arsenal scythed through Chelsea time and again by finding players in space either side of Jorginho and probably should have got a result. West Ham, Everton, Bournemouth and Manchester United all caused Sarri's side problems, too.

Chelsea have allowed their opponents 24 clear-cut chances this season, which is as many as struggling Huddersfield, more than Watford and Leicester, and almost twice as many as Wolves.

It is no coincidence that this has happened since Kante's role has changed dramatically. The positions in which he is touching the ball are higher up the pitch and wider than in any of his previous seasons in England. His touches are also more concentrated in specific areas, while in his two title-winning seasons - 2015/16 and 2016/17 - his work was spread out over almost the entire pitch.

He is making far fewer tackles and interceptions, while also having more shots and creating more chances than ever before. He did not have a single touch in the opposition penalty area in the whole season in which Leicester won the league, and he is having almost two per game this season. His dribbles are at their lowest rate in the Premier League because he is receiving the ball in attacking positions, when he is more useful getting it deep and driving forward through midfield to turn defence into attack. There are those transitions again.

Sarri is right that Kante is not the player to do the Jorginho-role, but he is also not the player Sarri also wants in his midfield.

The Italian is quite obviously a brilliant manager, and a master tactician. For three seasons in a row his Napoli side pushed a totally dominant and financially superior Juventus for the title. However, they ultimately fell short.

In each of those three seasons, respectively, he used the fewest, third-fewest and second-fewest players of all Serie A teams, and his team ran out of gas as the season drew to a close. So far in 2018/19, no team has had fewer players start matches than Sarri's Chelsea.

Clearly, he has his favourites and he sticks by them. When that is working and his team are winning there are no complains, but fans might soon start to get upset that Sarri isn't getting the most of one of his best players. Stubbornly sticking by his team and tactics might come back to haunt him.

Kante is, by all accounts, shy and unassuming off the pitch, and he is hugely popular both with fellow players and the fans. He doesn't like the limelight, and always looks uncomfortable when the World Cup winning France squad sing their chant about him. Reports over his refusal to accept his Chelsea wages through an offshore bank account have only endeared him further to the watching world.

So is this a battle Sarri is going to win? When results were going Chelsea's way, supporters could get on board with Kante being used out of position.

If there are more poor performances to follow the Tottenham defeat, though, Sarri might have to look into playing more to Kante's strengths.