Saturday evening saw N’Golo Kanté make his grand return to the King Power Stadium, and once again, the France midfielder finished the 90 minutes with his team winning the three points.
Facing the former Leicester star was Nampalys Mendy, bought in the summer by Claudio Ranieri to try and replacing the departing Kanté.
Only making his third Premier League star for the reigning champions due to a long-term injury, the former Monaco and Nice defensive midfielder was unable to stop Antonio Conte’s men from running away 3-0 winners, thanks to a brace by Marcos Alonso and a Pedro header.
Never meant to be a direct replacement for Kanté due to their different styles of play, the Leicester man was keen to reiterate to SFR Sport in France not to compare the two of them after he was asked if he felt a certain pressure stepping into the Chelsea man’s boots under Claudio Ranieri.
He said: “The most important thing for me was to play well again, make sure my ankle was right. After that, whether there was pressure, no. It wasn’t in my head. I just needed to focus on returning well. There’s no point thinking about N’Golo Kanté. I’m me and he’s him. Two different players, and that’s it.”
Fielding both Nampalys Mendy and Wilfred Ndidi in a 3-5-2 against the Premier League leaders, it seems Ranieri is yet to find the right formula to try and compensate for his lack of N’Golo Kanté this season.
Last year’s champions are currently 15th in the English top flight, picking up only 21 points in 21 games.
