Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard has said his club rejected interest in Kurt Zouma during the transfer window after the defender impressed on loan at Everton last season.
Zouma played regularly for Chelsea in pre-season, with Antonio Rudiger out with a long-term knee injury, and has become a frequent starter under Lampard this season.
Everton did try to sign the Frenchman this summer after his impressive outings at the club but Lampard was too happy with Zouma’s performances and his partnership with home-grown defender, Fikayo Tomori, to let him go.
His words, “He has been fantastic,”
“There was a belief that I had in Kurt because there was interest in the summer after we all know he had a very good loan at Everton last year.
“But I believed in him as I believed in Tomori – that is why I made the decisions I made pre-season in terms of where we were going to look defensively.
“It has been nice to get some stability, albeit because of injuries, between him and Fikayo in the last games.
“It has been good to get them playing together to see the little bond they are getting on and off the pitch. It is a nice little story and it must continue, I suppose.”
“Well, yes [I spoke to him about the abuse], because I do that with all the players,”
“But it was not as though I had to go to speak to Kurt to pick him up. That would have been reactionary.
“I am always trying to speak about a performance or a day in training. However, I see [racism], so it is not an out of the blue thing. I try to have those conversations.
“But Kurt is one of those players, as I mentioned, who just gets on with it. I think he is well-intentioned. He wants to do well, as they all do, and he is working hard and playing well.”
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