‘Superhuman’ midfielders – is it fair to make a Caicedo-Kante comparison?published at 14:47 GMT
Will Faulks
Chelsea fan writer
Image source, Getty Images
There was a lot of interesting stuff going on in Chelsea’s win over Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, both on and off the pitch.
But it’s impossible to write anything about that game and not mention Moises Caicedo. It doesn’t matter that every pundit, player and both managers have already done so. It still won’t be enough to explain just how good and just how important he was.
It was fitting that in a game where Chelsea repeatedly failed to turn their dominance into goals, the midfielder ended up being the one to decide the match. Already his team’s main ball-winner and progressor, Caicedo realised he was going to have to be their creator too. He stormed forward, won three challenges in a row and battered his way into the box, where he put the ball on a plate for Joao Pedro to finish.
If the Brazilian had hesitated, we have no doubt that Caicedo would have been on hand to force the ball into the net, too. Comparisons to N’Golo Kante are often made but rarely appropriate. In this case, you could get away with them.
As with Kante, however, Chelsea need to make sure they don’t end up becoming dependent on a midfielder’s superhuman abilities. In a strange way, having such an exceptional player can end up hurting the team as a whole – every time Kante was removed from the lineup, the rest of the squad would realise they had forgotten how to win games without the help from a force of nature. They must avoid the same issues with their new edition.
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