French youngster happy with Chelsea interest, knows he owes current club big time

Just under a week ago, we covered Le10's latest article on the Kurt Zouma situation. The article stated that, despite Kurt Zouma seemingly reluctant to leave his current club in the winter, Saint-Etienne would find it hard to resist selling their star defender if a good enough offer were to be made.

Favourites to sign the U20 World Champion remain the two Manchester clubs, Monaco and Chelsea. Mourinho's club have entered the battle to sign the youngster after seemingly giving up on Porto's Eliaquim Mangala and, following an article by the Daily Mirror on Sunday night, are being touted as being in pole position.

Amidst all this interest, the media outlets covering the story and linking Zouma to all these different clubs seem to forget that, even if the club is willing to sell, the player has the final say regarding his future. Today's edition of Le10 Sport backs up their inkling from last week and they believe that Zouma is set on staying at the club at least until the end of the season, despite Chelsea muscling their way onto the scene.

A source close to the player apparently told them that “Kurt does not have his mind set on leaving the club. He made it well aware at the beginning of the season that he was ready to stay for at least another year. Of course, it's always interesting to know that big clubs are following Kurt's progress, but above all, he wants to have a good second half of the season with Saint-Etienne to make up for his bad tackle against Sochaux. He wants to repay Saint-Etienne for their belief in him. He really likes this club. The transfer window? He's not talking about it”.

If any of the quote above is true, it seems very unlikely that Kurt Zouma will be leaving Ligue 1 during the January transfer window. The same applies to the club itself. A month or so ago, Saint-Etienne's chairman, Roland Romeyer, revealed that the club did not need to sell in January due to the money the club made with the sales of Aubameyang and Guilavogui in the summer.

As we have said many times whilst covering this saga, the fact that Zouma signed a new contract until 2017 with Saint-Etienne in the summer suggested from the off that the youngster was set on staying and developing at his current club. It makes perfect sense. Why move to another club if all you would end up doing is sit on the bench and play in cup games when you can develop in a competitive league, playing week in, week out at your current club?

It's fairly obvious that this sudden influx of rumours surrounding Kurt Zouma are due to his 10 match ban “casting doubts over his future at Saint-Etienne”. Once Zouma is back from his ban and returns to the starting line up, the rumours surrounding his future will slowly disappear. Until the summer that is. And then, they'll start all over again.