Chelsea are now very confident N'Golo Kante will sign a new contract with the club before his current deal expires in a few months' time, football.london understands.
The 31-year-old midfielder's current contract is due to run out at the end of June but the Blues are determined to extend his stay at Stamford Bridge. Kante has played just twice this season due to a serious hamstring injury but the club are adamant he can still play a big part in Graham Potter's plans going forward.
Kante has not played since Potter was appointed towards the start of September after suffering an injury against Tottenham in mid-August. However, as football.london revealed recently, Kante has been doing some light training with the rest of the Chelsea squad at Cobham recently as he nears his return to first-team action.
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The France international has been targeting the start of March to return to competitive action and that is still on course, it's understood. Kante will be hoping he can keep himself fit between now and the end of the season and prove to supporters – if needed – that he is worth the club's faith in extending his contract.
Talks have been ongoing for months, but this week there has been a breakthrough and Chelsea are now extremely confident a deal can be struck between the two parties. There has been interest from elsewhere in Europe in Kante, who looked destined to become a free agent at the end of the season, but the expectation is that he will remain a Chelsea player for the coming years.
Kante – on paper – looks to be the ideal partner to new signing Enzo Fernandez. So far in his four games as a Chelsea player, Fernandez has played alongside Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Mateo Kovacic and Conor Gallagher as Potter looks for a short-term solution before Kante returns.
It's an old cliché in football and is perhaps used too much but Kante will seem like a new signing for Chelsea when he is back in the first-team. He's been missing for over six months and supporters can hardly wait until his name is read out on the team-sheet once again.
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