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There are fresh rumors making the rounds that St. Etienne defender Kurt Zouma is close to a Chelsea move, and those are being fueled by his absence from from the matchday squad to face Bordeaux. La Gazette des Verts had an actual reason behind his absence though, and it appears that it has nothing to do with Chelsea:
The young St. Etienne central defender is not in the group of 18 players named by Christophe Galtier for tomorrow's match in Bordeaux. This absence is sure to fuel the rumor of an imminent departure, but we must remember that Kurt Zouma has been sick this week. He did not participate in training on Thursday and Friday.
It seems increasingly likely that a deal for Kurt Zouma will probably be done at some point, but it doesn't sound like his absence from the squad has anything to do with a move. When taking more than two seconds to think about this rumor, it made very little sense to connect one with the other anyway. Every report I've seen has indicated that the Frenchman would be remaining with St. Etienne until the summer, so there would be no reason for the club to leave him out of the squad in order to keep him healthy for a transfer.
