Chelsea did some excellent business on Saturday when they landed France midfielder N’Golo Kante from Leicester City.
According to The Guardian, Chelsea paid a £30m transfer fee for Kante, while the same source claim his new wages are £150,000 a week.
Sure, £30m is a lot when you consider he cost Leicester just £5.6m (fee reported by the Daily Mail) when he arrived from Cannes last August.
However, looking at these N’Golo Kante stats, it is crystal clear that Chelsea have got themselves a bargain.
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37 Premier League appearances in his debut season prove that Kante is adaptable, but also that he is very fit, both in terms of stamina and resistance to injury.
156 interceptions were made by Kante in these 37 games. No player in any of Europe’s top five leagues made more.
175 tackles. Again, this was unbeaten by any player from Europe’s elite leagues.
3 bookings. For a player to make 175 tackles and only pick up three yellow cards is outstanding. This proves that Kante’s technique is top-class, as well as his fitness. Liverpool’s Emre Can made 79 tackles with nine yellows, while Tottenham’s Eric Dier also made 79 tackles, picking up 10 bookings.
81.6% pass-completion rate. Not outstanding but better than Christian Eriksen, Oscar, Sadio Mane and Dimitri Payet.
4 assists is not bad at all for such a defensive player. Kante also scored one Premier League goal.
30 of Kante’s 1,449 Prem passes led directly to a teammate shooting. So he’d have plenty more assists to his name if Leicester’s attacking players had been more accurate!