N'Golo Kante reacts to Spurs win, his goal, and provides an injury update on his own fitness
Kante doesn't score many, so when he does they're always special regardless!
I’m sure you all need reminding, so I’ll say it again, Chelsea beat London rivals Tottenham 3-0 in their own back yard on Sunday… Say it back and say it loud.
The second half was literally transitioned by the arrival of N’Golo Kante onto the field at half time. The world class midfielder changed the game and swung the pendulum firmly in the direction of Chelsea’s favour.
And on the 57th minute, when things were still far from settled, he even scored a hugely important goal to make things much more comfortable for The Blues to go on and thrash Spurs and go away with all three points.
You can check out my thoughts on this game with my ‘5 things I noticed’ article here.
But when Kante scores a goal, it’s always special, and I just love how humble he always is about it and how he never really knows how to celebrate.
These were his words on his goal, and it is exactly what we expected!…
“It wasn’t my most beautiful goal, but it was an important goal and it helped my team.
”Mateo [Kovacic] gave me the ball, I saw that I had time to shoot so I shot, it was a deflection, but I am happy that it touched the post and went in. I am happy that I helped the team.”
I’m going to do the unthinkable here and argue with Kante… Because it WAS a beautiful goal, just to see this reaction….
Kante of course has been struggling with reoccurring injuries in recent times, and it is always a concern feeling like we need to keep him wrapped up in cotton wool.
But he has been pretty positive on his latest injury in his words after the Spurs game, which is at least great to hear…
“I am feeling better,” said Kante when asked about his injury.
“I think we managed the injury very well. I took time to come onto the pitch and I am happy to be back and I felt very good.”
Music to all of our ears, right?
As we touched upon earlier, Kante was the game-changer, and him coming on at half time was a masterstroke decision from Thomas Tuchel.
But when the players re-emerged after half time, you could just tell that Tuchel had just torn them all a new one in the changing rooms in those last 15 minutes, as Kante pretty much says here but just a lot more subtly and politely!!
“We received good advice from the manager at half-time, who told us to win more duels and play with more force,” Kante said.
“We had a super second half.
“Last year gave us a lot of confidence but we know nothing is going to be easy and we need to work hard and work together. It is important that we started well this season but there are many important games and we need to carry on.”
When Kante is on fire like Sunday, then it I’m not sure about you but it gives me so much more confidence going into matches!
Simon Phillips