COVID-19 SPECIAL: Commentary

Conscientious objectors aside, EPL could be stronger on return

N'Golo Kante was voted Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year in 2016-17. In many respects, however, it was an award for two seasons of excellence.

He was the driving force in successive title-winning campaigns for Leicester and Chelsea, who had finished 14th and 10th respectively 12 months earlier. He was so ubiquitous that he was like an extra man.

Leicester's former director of football Steve Walsh used to joke his side played with three in midfield: Danny Drinkwater in the middle with Kante either side. He was so good he became a World Cup winner with France in 2018.

Kante was the low-maintenance superstar, the quiet Mini driver who topped the charts for interceptions but rarely made headlines off the pitch. Until, that is, the Covid-19 pandemic propelled him on to the back pages.

The Premier League may not see perhaps the best defensive midfielder in the world, and once its pre-eminent player, again this season. Kante has decided not to train and it is hard to see him playing. He has reasons: His brother died of a heart attack in 2018, the same year he fainted in the dressing room. It is easy to think he may be more at risk than most in this pandemic.

Meanwhile, Watford captain Troy Deeney, whose baby son has respiratory difficulties, has been one of Project Restart's most vocal critics. But he was not alone in missing some training sessions.

Midfielder Tom Cleverley said: "If you are missing five or six of your players through personal circumstances, it's going to hit us hard and it does affect the integrity of the competition."

He was honest enough to say that Watford should not use it as an excuse for relegation, but only four players have more league goals than Deeney since Dec 22. And talk of five or six players raises a question: How many is too many?

Is a league stripped of credibility because of conscientious objectors? And if so, does it depend on the number of them? Or, indeed, their abilities as players?

If Chelsea's top scorer Tammy Abraham, who lives with his asthmatic father, also opts out, then are their games further devalued? Would the 10 worst players in the division, whoever they are, count less than another Kante? Does it matter if they all play for the same side, rather than depleting several teams of one player apiece?

The answer to the last question, surely, is yes, but with the caveat that players would be choosing not to take the field. These are exceptional circumstances and yet footballers miss games for more mundane reasons.

Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow raised the question of what would happen if the coronavirus deprived his side of Tyrone Mings, John McGinn and Jack Grealish, their three best players. The Premier League will not postpone games if a club have a solitary Covid-19 case. Villa, meanwhile, have been without McGinn since December. He was hurt when Mings was already sidelined. It felt a strange case of mental gymnastics from Purslow: There were no attempts to call those games off.

And pragmatically, and assuming every player recovers from Covid-19, there is a case for treating absentees as injured players even if, like Kante, they have not been infected.

There are clubs who have had horrific injury problems this season - should Bournemouth go down, that will be a major reason - but no one talked of sporting integrity being threatened by eight hamstring or groin strains.

Now the majority of players have recovered. Paradoxically, the Premier League could be stronger when it returns: Most managers will be able to name closer to their first-choice 11, though no one is claiming that gives it more credibility.

As it happens, Kante has already missed 11 of Chelsea's league games. Mateo Kovacic has been their outstanding midfielder this season. They are fourth. To stay there, without the World Cup winner, would exacerbate the achievement.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 30, 2020, with the headline Conscientious objectors aside, EPL could be stronger on return. Subscribe