Chelsea round-up: PFA award for N’Golo Kante; Real Madrid drop Eden Hazard interest; Antonio Conte insists side haven’t reached their peak

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To top off a brilliant weekend for the club, Sunday night saw the Professional Footballers’ Association confirm that the PFA Player’s Player of the Year award had been won by N’Golo Kante. The diminutive midfielder was one of several nominees but stood out from the crowd to secure the individual award which was won by former team-mate Riyhad Mahrez last season.

Eden Hazard was a fellow nominee and was tipped by many to be the favourite to win the award, but it was Kante who earned the praise of his team-mates and competitors to lift the trophy and become the first central midfielder to win the award since 2006, and the first Frenchman since Thierry Henry in 2004.

It may come as some consolation for Hazard, though, that he could yet have another opportunity to win the trophy for a second time, after his victory in 2015, with his future at Chelsea becoming more certain. The Sun claim that Real Madrid’s interest in the Belgian is fading as Zinedine Zidane has been impressed by the performances of 21-year-old Marco Asensio.

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Zidane is reluctant to impede the development of the Spaniard who has been impressive for the club after returning from a loan spell at Espanyol last season, and is not keen on the idea of splashing a huge chunk of his transfer budget on another forward who would limit his game-time.

It’s also a massive boost for Antonio Conte as he looks to build his team to be stronger next season, something which is clearly a key objective for the Italian, as he told the Telegraph, after the Blues reached the FA Cup final thanks to an assured victory over Tottenham at Wembley on Saturday:

“I think that now at Chelsea we are in a period of transition. In this season, we have lost Ivanovic, Mikel and next season we lose John Terry. We are talking about players who wrote the history of this club. They won a lot.

“Now we have to find the right substitutes for these players and then work to put these players at the same level… Now we are building. We are building something important. We need time.

“It’s not easy when you lose these types of players, but we need to show patience to build the foundations and then improve every season.”

With strengthening likely to be required with further challenges in the form of European football, it’s expected that the London club will have to spend big this summer to ensure that they can compete on all fronts next season. Conte is clearly confident of doing so.

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