Chelsea winger Eden Hazard has expressed his belief that N'Golo Kante deserved to win the PFA Player of the Year award for this season.
Kante fought off opposition from Hazard himself as well as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Harry Kane, Alexis Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku to scoop the prestigious prize at Sunday's awards ceremony.
The France international is the first primarily defensive player to win the award since John Terry in 2004-05, and Hazard believes that is a mark of how impressive he has been.
"It's fully deserved. He had a great season with Leicester and then this season too," he told Sky Sports News.
"You know the trophy most times goes to the player who scores some goals or gets some assists and wins games, but N'Golo changed that.
"He is not scoring goals or making many assists, but he does a fantastic job on the pitch. He deserved to win."
Chelsea currently sit four points clear of Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the Premier League table and would temporarily increase that lead to seven with a win over Southampton this evening.
Barney Corkhill
