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Kante with a 20 yarder puts Chelsea 1 up against manure
 
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Chelsea beat Manchester United 1-0 in their FA Cup quarter-final at Stamford Bridge, with N’Golo Kanté standing out.
This has to be it now, right? You can’t keep on arguing against this man’s candidacy to be the next President of the European Union. Or maybe he could return to France and save them from Marie Le Pen. Intercepting the far right’s attempts to take control of French government as easily as he intercepts passes from opponents.

Well, actually that’s probably going a bit too far so maybe he’ll just have to settle for winning every English footballing award going.

After the game on Monday night, Alan Shearer chimed in: “I think you’re looking at the Football Writer’s Player of the year and the Player’s Player of the Year,” Shearer exalted on BBC’s Match of the Day. “He has stood out above everyone else.”

In truth, this was basically the case last year except Riyad Mahrez was in absolutely sensational what-if-Zinedine-Zidane-was-left-footed-and-played-for-Leicester form in 2015/16, and everyone loves an attacking player thus the Algerian took the gongs.

So Kanté went unrewarded. Perhaps people had not really grasped the magnitude of Kanté’s genius. Obviously Claudio Ranieri likened him to “having two players” but Sir Alex Ferguson said much the same about Ji-Sung Park and no one cares about him anymore.

This summer every top club in England needed N’Golo Kanté yet only Chelsea really went for it. Why remains a mystery. Alright, not that much of a mystery Arsene Wenger is allergic to success and Pep Guardiola needs his players to be excellent passers and if the footballing gods have given Kanté one weakness by way of letting other players stand a chance against him, it’s that the French midfielder is an astoundingly average passer at best.

Spurs at least signed Vincent Wanyama in the same position (and he has been great). But Liverpool and Manchester United, the two most successful clubs in English football, both passed on Kanté. Not literally mind you no one can pass on Kanté he always intercepts the ball and then smiles in your face.

So anyway Kanté signed for Chelsea and with him at the helm the Blues have gone from no-hopers to Champions-elect. Well, Champions really no one is going to catch them at this point. And yes Eden Hazard and Diego Costa have been special in attack but the beating heart of their side is N’Golo Kanté.

N’Golo Kanté is the reason that Chelsea can field a back three that contains a short full-back and Gary Cahill yet remain a defensively solid outfit that is hard to break down. Much in the same way that Kanté made Robert Huth and Wes Morgan look like actually good defenders last season and not like moving versions of those inflatable flailing tube man things that they actually are.





On Monday night, Manchester United came to town. They’ve been in great form, having lost just twice since being thwumped 4-0 by Chelsea in late October (a game in which N’Golo Kanté sent Chris Smalling all the way to Tartarus while scoring a gorgeous goal) and many wondered if they could halt Chelsea’s seemingly inexorable march towards a domestic double.

But that’s a joke, because of course they couldn’t. N’Golo Kanté was all over the place as usual. And not in a bad “Scott Parker in the Champions League” all over the place. But a good and reassuring “Samuel L. Jackson is in every single film” kind of all over the place.

Moreover, he delivered unto José Mourinho a brutal coup de gracé.

51 minutes into the contest, Kanté received the ball about 25 yards out. The majority of United’s team was in front of Kanté, packed in their own box to try and stop Chelsea from passing their way through.

So Kanté, and you are referred to the fact that this man can do anything at this point, took aim and leathered an absolute beauty of a low dipping shot into the bottom corner of the net. It was such a good strike David De Gea forgot to dive at first, and as such was late in getting to it.

That ended the match. United were down to 10 and Chelsea, per Kanté’s presence, were playing with 12.

The game more or less petered out, with Marcus Rashford and Diego Costa each taking a turn to miss a great chance – and one could make a joke here about N’Golo Kanté intercepting their attempts to steal the headlines from him, but that would be taking things too far.

And that is exactly what N’Golo Kanté doesn’t let opponents do.
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Last weekend I was playing in a 6 a side football comp in rural Australia with teams from all over the state. One team that got a snigger and cheer every time was mentioned on the tannoy:

Two goals, one Schlupp.
 
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1Liverpool1128
2Manchester C  1123
3Chelsea1119
4Arsenal1119
5Nottm F1119
6Brighton1119
7Fulham1118
8Newcastle1118
9Aston Villa1118
10Tottenham 1116
11Brentford1116
12Bournemouth1115
13Manchester U1115
14West Ham1112
15Leicester1110
16Everton1110
17Ipswich118
18Palace117
19Wolves116
20Southampton114

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