Everton ready to move on from Zouma

Everton brought in a raft of players right on deadline day last summer, but manager Marco Silva is keen to avoid that happening again.

Chelsea are away on their preseason tour to Japan, having appointed Frank Lampard to be their new manager, and one of the first decisions the former England midfielder had to make was to keep Kurt Zouma, or sell him to the Toffees, and it appears he’s made his decision.

The France international joined the Stamford Bridge side on their current trip and in recent comments Lampard indicated that he had no reason to let the defender go [Daily Star].

“In terms of Kurt Zouma, he’s a very good defender for us, very good player, very good person and professional.

“I want him here, simple as that. We are competitive with the centrebacks we have in the team and he had a very good season at Everton.

“I can understand why they want him. He’s a Chelsea player and I want him.”

With their two transfer window ban, Chelsea will not be able to bring in new players for another calendar year, which could play a big part on Lampard’s though process.

Meanwhile, Silva understands the situation and wants to have a settled squad as soon as possible. When asked if the Blues would move on at some point to their next targets, he said -

“You are right, you are right. Of course, one of the most important things for me, since we finished the season, is to keep our level.

“It is very, very good for us that we could do that with Andre [Gomes] and our most important players until now, because it was not just Andre and Kurt.

“The most important players in our squad are still here at our club, the 15 or 16 players who played the most are still here until this moment, other than Kurt.

“Let’s see what we can do in this situation. It is not an easy situation, we are working on the other solutions because we cannot wait until the last week or the last day to take one player.

“We will see in the next days and next week to see if it will be possible or not, if not we have to go to the other solutions I have in my mind.”