Medical insider salutes ‘beast’ N’Golo Kante as Chelsea return date revealed
N’Golo Kante has historically been a “beast” when it comes to recovering from hamstring injuries – but his latest setback is likely to see him sidelined for Chelsea for up to six weeks.
That is the view of medical expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in injury and data analysis.
Kante, 31, withdrew cluthching his hamstring with six minutes to play in Chelsea’s dramatic 2-2 draw with Tottenham last Sunday (14 August).
As quoted by club media on Friday (19 August), Thomas Tuchel revealed that the issue is “quite serious” and that the Frenchman will be out for “several weeks”.
The midfielder has been plagued by setbacks in the last three seasons, and Dinnery explained that his current injury cycle can be dated back to the 2019 Europa League final.
“It was a fast movement acceleration and it looked as though he grabbed the lower part of his hamstring,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“That indicates that it is fairly serious. We initially said around four to six weeks, and that has been more or less confirmed by Thomas Tuchel.
“I’d be very surprised if we saw any return before that three to four-week mark. Although, historically Kante is a bit of a physical beast in terms of his powers of recovery.
“We have had several hamstring injuries registered for Kante but only one has stretched to a month over the course of his entire career, so he is a guy that returns quickly.
“In this instance, you can pinpoint his injury problems back to the Europa League final against Arsenal in 2019. Until that point, he was basically bulletproof with 95 per cent availability.
“He went into that game carrying an injury. He probably shouldn’t have played but he did 90 minutes. That ruined his pre-season and since then we have had 22 time-loss absences against Kante.
“These are starting to catch up with him. So, whereas previously we would be working on the basis of maybe three weeks, I think we are certainly looking at closer to four to six.”
In other news, pundit tells Anthony Gordon to reject Chelsea offer after Everton source’s update.