3 Chelsea players Everton must watch-out for: Everton without James Rodriguez

Kante is one of the best defensive midfielders in the world, water is wet.

N’Golo Kante

Everybody’s favourite footballer has been back in-form this season for Super Frank. After a turbulent season under Maurizio Sarri, Kante has shown his world-class ability as the heir to Claude Makelele for the Blues.

As arguably one of the best midfielders in the world, Kante can trouble any team, but against an Everton team that tends to lose the ball a lot, the France international could dominate the midfield in a dominant Chelsea performance.

Kante has been defensively brilliant, as always, for Frank Lampard. The Frenchman is currently averaging around 2.9 tackles and 2.6 interceptions, with his anticipation and engine a key factor in Chelsea’s ability to pick the ball up in midfield and create dangerous attacking scenarios.

Kante is also quite underrated going forward, with almost 1 key pass and dribble per game, which is great considering Kante’s job is to pick the ball up and play it to one of Chelsea’s more creative passers like Mateo Kovacic or Jorginho.

One certain thing is that Everton will have to be careful when it comes to playing silly passes in the midfield because Kante will make the Toffees pay time and time again if they continue to make those mistakes.

How can Everton neutralise N’Golo Kante?

This one isn’t as tactical as my previous two ways of neutralising Chelsea players, it’s a lot more simple and I’ve previously mentioned it. Everton’s midfield needs to be careful around Kante because he’s fantastic at picking up on mistakes and adjusting his game to capitalise on them.

Allan and Doucoure need to have a little more time on the ball to pick out more intelligent passes instead of trying to play the quicker paced tiki-taka style passing which has almost lead to Everton being punished multiple times this season and will definitely lead to conceding goals against Chelsea.

A good strategy for Everton may also be to give Kante more of the ball than he’d expect, by marking Chelsea’s natural playmakers it could lead to Kante making a mistake, and even though I think Kante’s offensive game is quite underrated, I also think he can be quite prone to a messed up pass, in a similar fashion to Allan, which could provide Everton with counter-attacking opportunities to punish a very strong Chelsea side.

Conclusion

To be completely honest I don’t know if I can see Everton winning this game. Without their key playmaker in James Rodriguez Everton are bound to struggle, and with the rise in form of Thiago Silva as a leader in Chelsea’s defence, it could lead Everton with very little chances to score.

One thing Everton NEED to do in this game is take advantage of every little opportunity they get, if Everton try to play nice tiki-taka football against the Blues they’ll be punished, this needs to be a more cautious approach from Carlo Ancelotti, with the counter-attack being Everton’s best friend in this game.