Jermaine Jenas says he didn’t fancy Chelsea’s chances of overcoming Aston Villa the second he realised N’Golo Kante wouldn’t be playing.
Speaking on BT Sport after yesterday’s final Premier League weekend of the season, Jenas reflected on Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat to Villa.
Chelsea’s Champions League hopes hung in the balance all afternoon and took a massive dent when they went two goals down at Villa Park.
Thankfully for Thomas Tuchel’s team, Tottenham Hotspur were the unlikely heroes, beating Leicester City to ensure their London rivals finished inside the top four.
Despite achieving European qualification, the result was not a brilliant end to what’s been a confusing campaign for Chelsea.
And Jenas had his reservations when he found out the Blues wouldn’t be able to call upon Kante against Villa.
“As soon as I saw Kante wasn’t playing, I didn’t fancy them at all,” said the former Spurs midfielder.
“As the weeks went on, Villa were in a good place after beating Tottenham. Fans were back.
“(Jack) Grealish was back. You had a feeling they wanted to put on a show for the fans that were going to be at the game.
“No Kante. It was all just leaning towards that (defeat against Villa).”
Kante didn’t travel with the Chelsea pack to face Villa, due to an injury picked up in the mid-week win over Leicester.
Tuchel admitted pre-match that he hoped the Frenchman would be back in training on Wednesday ahead of the Champions League finale.
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It’s not clear how much of an impact the 30-year-old would have had on Sunday’s league tie.
But he couldn’t have performed much worse than Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic.
Both were brought off in the second half, after Jorginho gave away a penalty and Kovacic lost control of his display.
If Kante is fit to face City, Tuchel will have to decide who warrants a place to play alongside him in midfield.
Based on the recent proceedings, neither Jorginho nor Kovacic really deserves the call-up.
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