While Chelsea have done a great job of addressing their defensive issues this week, it won’t mean much if they don’t do something about the two midfielders in front of them.
Jorginho and Kovacic are both great footballers and look brilliant when they have the ball at their feet, but they aren’t good enough to shield the back four.
It might be that they are just too similar to work as a combination, but they don’t press with any intensity or win the ball back on a regular basis, so opposing teams can play through them with ease.
That needs to change next season and N’Golo Kante should be the ideal solution to the problem, but Football Insider have suggested that he could be sold instead.
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They claim that the ultimate aim is to find a way to add Declan Rice to the midfield, so the French star could be expendable.
It sounds like the current situation is that Real Madrid have registered their interest, while Chelsea are demanding around £60m to let him go.
Real have had some well documented money problems this summer so it’s hard to see them spending that much money, so the possibility of Rice ending up at Stamford Bridge does look slim.
If nothing happens and Kante stays then Lampard should still be looking to use him as an energetic ball winner next to Kovacic or Jorginho to at least give the back four some protection, so it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.