Jermaine Jenas believes N’Golo Kante and Wilfred Ndidi will be crucial to the outcome of the FA Cup final this evening.
Chelsea take on Leicester City at Wembley in the final of the prestigious cup competition, with Thomas Tuchel and Brendan Rodgers set to go head-to-head for the first of two games in the space of four days.
The two managers have not faced each other in English football yet, with Tuchel arriving at Chelsea in January as Frank Lampard’s successor in west London.
But former Tottenham midfielder Jenas reckons the tactical battle between the two sides could revolve around key players for both sides in the middle of the pitch.
“The midfield battle is going to be brilliant to watch, because I think you have got two of the best midfielders in the league,” he said, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“The balance that [N’Golo] Kante and [Mason] Mount have with Jorginho there in [the Chelsea] midfield, and I love Wilfred Ndidi, who really took on Kante’s role at Leicester as that general stopper in that midfield, which he does so well.
“If [James] Maddison does play, there will be Kante’s role around Maddison and there is Ndidi’s role against Mount and they will be two key battles in the way this game goes.”
Ndidi has made more tackles than Kante so far this term in the Premier League albeit the Nigerian has played five games less than the Chelsea man. The Leicester star is ranked fifth in the tacklers ranking with 86 tackles while Kante is seventh with 79 tackles.
This term the Super Eagles star has made more assists (3) in 24 games than Kante (2) in 29 games and the Nigerian has scored once in the Premier League.
Interestingly, Ndidi succeeded Kante as Premier League best tackler in 2017/18 season and won it for two consecutive seasons. Kante has however made more tackles in the Premier League (612) than Ndidi (563) with both having 63% and 62% success rate respectively.
Kante has however featured in more games (193) across six seasons while Ndidi has featured 144 times across four and a half seasons.