Everton no longer want to talk about Zouma, despite #FreeZouma Twitter campaign

Kurt Zouma looks set to stay with Chelsea after spending the last two years out on loan, in part (at least initially) to help him recover from the devastating ACL injury he suffered three years ago. But as evidenced last year at Everton, he’s fully recovered and ready to resume fulfilling the promise he showed when he was one of the few good things to be happening in the awful Season That Shall Not Be Named.

Everton had been hoping very much to keep Zouma of course, and while the Toffees had seemingly moved on to other backup targets (as manager Marco Silva made clear), their fans were not willing to let it go without one, very Millennial response. No, it wasn’t a petition on change.org. It was a Twitter hashtag instead.

That bit of silliness — was given weight by journalists asking Marco Silva about it as well. But Silva, unlike at many points throughout the previous twelve months, was suddenly a bit too reticent to talk about Zouma, trotting out the old line about him not being their player. Funny how that didn’t matter much before!

“No I don’t look [on social media]! What is the priority is the central defender, when cannot go through a tough season with Mason [Holgate], Michael [Keane] and [Yerry] Mina - even if the boy [Lewis] Gibson is working with us, he’s not ready yet for this level.

“I don’t like to talk about Zouma, because he’s not our player. I don’t need to repeat anything about him. Our fans’ reaction shows everything about what we as a club and me as a manager think about him. But it’s not fair for me [to comment] first because I have to respect the defenders we have here even if they know we want one more, and Zouma is a Chelsea player. It’s not the moment to talk about him.”

“If it’s not Zouma, it has to be another one with quality to improve our squad and to give competition.”

-Marco Silva; source: Liverpool Echo

Perhaps we can bury and end this silliness once and for all then?