Maurizio Sarri continues to denigrate N’golo Kante’s ability as a ball distributor and said this morning in a press conference, prior to the Malmo game, that Kante cannot distribute the ball quickly enough from the position currently held by Jorginho.
I have an issue with this on a number of fronts. Currently, the play and distribution from Jorginho them is so painfully slow that even the worst teams we play can get 10 men behind the ball and make it difficult to break down.
Jorginho does not possess the speed either to initiate fast breaks and supply the wingers or front men with early passes as shown by his recent play and zero assists.
Kante, on the other hand, has been asked to play on the right-hand side of midfield where passing is a pre-requisite and that negates the initial argument from Sarri.
The manager seems to have forgotten that in the last few years, Kante has been a two-time Premier League champion. On top of that, he was named Player of the Year in 2016-17, in probably the most competitive league in the world. Then this past summer, he was a member of the World Cup winning French team. This is quite the resume and perhaps someone should let Sarri know that Kante won all these honours at the defensive midfield position that Sarri says he is not capable of playing!
I am all for giving managers the time to get their team and their structure sorted but Sarri is either incapable of change or is just to stubborn to realize that he is just plain wrong on this front.
Kante has been linked with a transfer away and just like Callum Hudson-Odoi, who could blame him?
Waiting until after the next three games to see how we are doing and then possibly sacking Sarri is just plain insane.
By then, our season is well and truly over, so making the change now would have been the way to go, but since we have not done that, the only change that makes sense is to restore Kante to his natural position and go from there.
