N’Golo Kante has been accused of “losing his discipline” during Chelsea’s defeat against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley on Saturday by coach Maurizio Sarri.
The French World Cup-winning midfielder came under fire from some quarters for his performance – including Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher.
Sarri was asked about Kante and whether he could play alongside Jorginho in the heart of the Blues midfield. He replied by saying “Kante was trying to solve the game on his own, lost his discipline.
“Only Jorginho and Fabregas can play in the middle because he needs a “technical midfielder” in the middle.”
He continued: “He lost his position. He attacked too much the other box. And I think this is not one of the best characteristics of Kante, but it was only a reaction to the difficulties.”
It wasn’t just Kante who came in for some Sarri stick. The whole performance against Spurs had clearly got him hot under the collar.
“The problem was with the approach in the last three matches,” said Sarri. “If you go to the pitch with that approach and the opponents are very strong, like Tottenham, and determined like Tottenham were, the problem is bigger.
So they were able to destroy us in 15 minutes, but I saw the same problems also in the match before.
“I have to think about everything because Saturday we played very badly, a match without determination, but we lost one match after 110 days, so the team did well, generally. But we have to understand why we played against Tottenham without determination.
“It’s not normal. First of all, I want to see a reaction, but I want to see a reaction in the next Premier League match as well. I want to see that we have learned our lessons.”
After the Spurs game, Sarri held one-on-one meetings with his players adding: “It’s very difficult for them, I think, to tell me why.
Very difficult. Somebody told me that, maybe, the international break was a problem. A problem to be immediately ready at 100 per cent.
I talk to them player by player. I have a meeting of five or 10 minutes with the individuals. But, as I said before, we lost one match after three and a half months. We have to understand why, especially from the mental point of view.
“It’s very difficult for me to understand why. We played without determination in such an important match. If you don’t have determination, you have no motivation. If you have no motivation, maybe you don’t have clear targets in your mind. I wanted to understand this.”