Midfielders
Central Midfielder: N’Golo Kante
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The French midfielder joined Chelsea from the reigning champions, Leicester City, in the summer, and his move has signified the importance of his presence in both the teams. While Leicester are struggling in the lower mid-table, Chelsea are flying high.
Known for his never ending stamina and work rate, Kante has formed a formidable partnership with Matic. With defensive liabilities like Luiz and Cahill in the team, Kante’s involvement has been extremely crucial in maintaining the solid defensive record that Chelsea have this season.
Brushing off competition from an in-form Joe Allen, Kante is on course to become the workhorse that Chelsea have missed since the days of Essien and Makelele.
Central Midfielder: Paul Pogba
The world record signing from Juventus, Paul Pogba has been the butt of all jokes in social media this season for not living up to expectations. However, with pretty solid numbers to back him up in almost every department, Pogba has given the Man United midfield a new dimension.
The Frenchman has completed the third highest number of passes in the league so far, highest number of passes in the final third in the top 5 leagues, and has created more chances than any other central midfielder in the league this season. Pogba has also won the most duels in the league so far with 39 take-ons and 41 aerial duels won.
Due to Gundogan’s injury trouble and inconsistency, Paul Pogba makes it a french duo in the midfield.
Winger: Nathan Redmond
The new Southampton signing was always highly rated by the English coaches over the course of his youth career. The 22-year-old winger decided to leave Norwich at the end of the last campaign as they got relegated.
While Redmond hasn’t set the world on fire, he has been consistently threatening in the final third. Even though he is young, he has 230 professional matches under his belt so far.
Redmond surely seems like a good, relatively cheap signing for the future especially since he has also scored 3 goals in the league so far and created 27 chances on his own. These performances have meant he has been one of the first names on the team-sheet for the Saints.
Winger: Nolito
The 30-year-old Spanish international moved to Manchester City following a terrific season at Celta Vigo last time around.
Even though he faces competition from exciting talents like Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane and the mercurial Kevin De Bruyne, he has been solid whenever he has played. His versatility has come to the fore as the Spaniard has played in various positions on both the wings as well as a false nine.
He has delivered two assists so far and scored 4 goals. Although he has often been used as a substitute or backup, he has threatened opposition defences frequently whenever given a chance. Manchester United’s Mkhitaryan would have probably been the first choice for this spot but he has hardly played so far, paving the way for Nolito’s entry.
