{"id":211695,"date":"2018-08-10T13:07:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T17:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=211695"},"modified":"2018-08-22T22:04:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T02:04:00","slug":"everton-complete-loan-signing-of-kurt-zouma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2018\/08\/10\/everton-complete-loan-signing-of-kurt-zouma\/","title":{"rendered":"Everton Complete Loan Signing of Kurt Zouma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everton have wrapped up an extraordinary deadline day with the loan signing of Kurt Zouma from Chelsea. The French centre-back joins for the season after spending the 2017\/18 season with relegated Stoke City.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">?? | Defender <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KurtZouma?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@KurtZouma<\/a> joins <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#EFC<\/a> on a season-long loan from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChelseaFC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ChelseaFC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More \u27a1\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JdHLN6iDpN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/JdHLN6iDpN<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IzIHxBTahN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/IzIHxBTahN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Everton (@Everton) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Everton\/status\/1027932779516973057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 10, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Kurt Zouma Moves to Everton on Loan<\/h1>\n<p>Zouma&#8217;s career began in his native France with Saint-Etienne where he made a total of 61 appearances, scoring six goals. In the January transfer window of the 2013\/14 season, Chelsea signed the defender for \u00a312 million, but he remained in France on loan for the remainder of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>He started life at Chelsea well, but some uncertain performances and a horrific knee injury saw Zouma slowly replaced in the Chelsea team. He made his comeback in an FA Cup victory over Peterborough.<\/p>\n<p>In order to rebuild his fitness, Zouma joined Stoke on loan for the 2017\/18 season and made his debut in a 1-0 loss to Everton. His only goal for the Potters came in a 2-2 draw against Brighton &amp; Hove Albion.<\/p>\n<h2>Quality Signing For Everton<\/h2>\n<p>Despite occasional lapses in concentration, Zouma is clearly a talented player who has been badly affected by his injury. Without this, he probably would have stayed in and around Chelsea&#8217;s first team and would not have the Stoke relegation on his record.<\/p>\n<p>His strength, aerial presence and reading of the game are all key assets that will be beneficial to Everton as they look to rebuild after a poor season in 2017\/18.<\/p>\n<p>With Ashley Williams loaned out to Stoke, it seems likely that Zouma will partner Michael Keane in the centre of defence, with backup provided by youngster Mason Holgate, and maybe a return to the squad for Brendan Galloway.<\/p>\n<p>This move will be a chance for Zouma to re-establish himself in the Premier League after being part of a relegated side and he will be using it as a view to get back into the Chelsea team, or to seal a permanent move from Stamford Bridge at the end of this season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"19Wp9KxYQSh-_ITJVyGT9Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/958502508\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'19Wp9KxYQSh-_ITJVyGT9Q',sig:'4sbgFs_RIKvjbpNVvLX3Ch_R5e1-ZFSP1IhpzDFyYSk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'958502508',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everton have wrapped up an extraordinary deadline day with the loan signing of Kurt Zouma from Chelsea. The French centre-back joins for the season after spending the 2017\/18 season with relegated Stoke City. ?? | Defender @KurtZouma joins #EFC on a season-long loan from @ChelseaFC. More \u27a1\ufe0f https:\/\/t.co\/JdHLN6iDpN pic.twitter.com\/IzIHxBTahN \u2014 Everton (@Everton) August 10, 2018 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":211698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,13],"tags":[46,45,2610,40,356,136],"class_list":["post-211695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-chelsea","category-everton","tag-chelsea","tag-everton","tag-kurt-zouma","tag-premier-league","tag-stoke-city","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}