Claude Makelele wants his famous position renamed in honour of Chelsea star N'Golo Kante

1/20
James Benge26 May 2017

N’Golo Kante has been handed the ultimate honour by compatriot Claude Makelele, who wants his famed position renamed for the current Chelsea midfielder.

The ‘Makelele role’ was one of the major tactical trends of the early years of the 21st century, with the Frenchman providing an energetic shield for defences at Real Madrid and Chelsea, winning five top division titles and a Champions League in the process.

Chelsea spent £32million on a successor for Makelele in the summer and have been rewarded with the double Footballer of the Year in Kante, who brought his title-winning form from Leicester to Stamford Bridge.

“People talk about the Makelele position, but I am old and it is time everybody called it the Kante position. N'Golo deserves that,” Makelele, now one of Paul Clement’s assistants at Swansea, told the Chelsea website.

“Every time I watch N'Golo, I see so much desire in him, so much focus and so much determination to make himself a better player with every game.

“He was the heartbeat of the Leicester team, but it was also like taking a bulldog for a walk, you had to keep pulling him back because he had so much energy.”

Kante had earned rave reviews for his role in Leicester’s surprise title triumph last season and has proven to be a shrewd acquisition at a lower price than Arsenal paid for Granit Xhaka or Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba.

After some initial growing pains in the early months of the season Kante, like the rest of his Chelsea team-mates, has starred in Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 formation and Makelele has noticed significant improvements in the France international since his move to London.

“Now N'Golo has added intelligence,” he added. “He appreciates the position of his team-mates more and how to play in a more sophisticated system where it is not all about running and tackling, but the decisions he makes.

“Some players are meant to be superstars, but some - like N'Golo and myself - must be happy making other people look good.

“Next season we will see him become even better because he will have the challenge of the Champions League. He is also part of a fantastic generation of young players coming through for France, which will also see him develop.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in