Claudio Ranieri has spent the entire season attempting to plug the gaping hole left by N’Golo Kante at Leicester City.
How do you replace the irreplaceable? Well, as Leicester City have discovered in rather emphatic fashion, you can’t.
If there is a single player on planet earth who can supplant the boundless energy, the constant efficiency and the shapeshifting, all-round brilliance of N’Golo Kante, then it certainly isn’t the injury prone Nampalys Mendy or the 20-year-old Wilfried Ndidi, recently recruited from Belgium. At least not yet anyway.
However, Napoli’s talented enforcer, one of the finest all-round midfielders in Serie A last season, could come closer than most. We need to talk about Allan.
Tuttomercatoweb claim that Leicester are ready to challenge Watford for the 26-year-old with Napoli’s squad fit to bursting with top class central midfield talent. Though the fact that Allan could be the one to make way should not deter his Premier League suitors.
For an extremely combative, hard-working defensive midfielder, the former Udinese enforcer isn’t bad going the other way either. Thanks to his bombarding runs from deep and smooth ball control, he’s accumulated an impressive nine assists and three goals in two-and-a-half league campaigns under Maurizio Sarri.
If we must compare him to Leicester’s title seizing dynamo, he beats him hands down in both categories. And that’s not because Napoli lack goalscorers. In fact, they’ve scored more Serie A goals than any other side, even Juventus, since the beginning of 2015/16 with Allan a major player in the final third as well as the defensive half.
According to talkSPORT, Chelsea have been heavily linked with the Brazilian in the past though, with Kante joining Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas as Antonio Conte’s midfield options, plus the highly-rated Nathanial Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in reserve, it’s highly unlikely that Stamford Bridge beckons.
Another Italian, however, should jump at the chance.
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