Kante demands January contract from Barcelona: The latest

Carlo Garganese

• 20 Dec 2022 10:07 GMT
• 3 min read

N’Golo Kante is pushing Barcelona to sign him on a pre-contract in January, according to Sport.

Kante is resigned to leaving Chelsea when his contract expires at the end of the season and has decided his next club should be Barca.

The 31-year-old has received offers from a number of clubs and has told Barca to hurry up and get his Bosman contract signed in January so that he can join for free in July 2023.

READ MORE: Barcelona would be crazy to replace Busquets with Kante

Kante has been an instrumental player for the Blues over the past few years, especially during the club’s 2021 Champions League success.

However, he is now on the wrong side of 30 and increasingly injury-prone.

With fellow midfielder Jorginho also seeing his deal expire at the end of the season, it is widely reported that Chelsea will only renew one of these two players at most.

Kante injury problems

Kante appears to be the one who is least likely to sign a new deal due to a string of injuries over the last year or two.

The former Leicester City star has played just 175 minutes of football this season with a hamstring injury, while he had four different injuries last season as well as two bouts of Coronavirus. He missed the World Cup due to injury.

Barcelona have been heavily linked with both Kante and Jorginho, having signed a host of free transfers in the last year or two.

This past summer, Barca bought Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen on a Bosman transfer, while a year ago they brought in Sergio Aguero, Memphis Depay and Eric Garcia.

Kante joined Chelsea after helping Leicester to win the Premier League in 2015-16.

He has made 262 appearances for Chelsea, scoring 11 goals. He has won one Premier League title, one Champions League as well as the World Cup during his time at the club.