#3 Leicester replacing Kante with Mendy
Jamie Vardy may have got the goals, Riyad Mahrez may have created them, but N’Golo Kante was, quite literally, the pulsating core, the heart of the Foxes’ title-winning campaign last year and such importance has translated to his Chelsea tenure.
Dubbed the ‘Kante Effect’, the Frenchman’s influence has been splashed across the media, with one graphic underlining how, after seventeen games last season, Leicester were top and Chelsea fifteenth, but one year on after the same number of games, the two sides switch positions. The only significant change in that time was Kante, who moved between the two clubs.
The Frenchman made the most tackles (175) and the most interceptions (156) in the 2015/16 season, doing the arduous unseen work without which Leicester would have fallen short of Premier League glory. Whilst he has now regenerated the Chelsea midfield, his absence left a great gaping hole in the Leicester midfield, which still hasn’t really been filled.
Nampalys Mendy was brought in from Nice to fill the void but has had limited game time due to an ankle injury he sustained late last year. Nonetheless, he’s still not the correct kind of player to supersede Kante; his forte is passing and shielding the defence as a flat midfielder, not the explosive box-to-box player Kante is.
As a result, the Foxes have struggled this campaign, lacking an engine in their core, with minimal cover for their back-line.
