Not pointless, and it's why Jose Mourinho is such a great manager. He's intelligent and open-minded enough to put long-term gain before short-term paranoia, something very rare in modern managers and speaks to his self-confidence. While the likes of Pellegrini simply hoard players and leave them to rot in the reserves (Jack Rodwell, anyone?), Mourinho is sensible enough to realise that a very young player will be more use to him in the long-term with a year of real Premiership experience under his belt. He has Terry and Cahill and likely has some experienced cover too, perhaps not as good as Zouma but still, the benefits of Zouma playing every week will be a huge advantage to Chelsea in years to come. Because Mourinho is one manager who doesn't worry about his job security today, he allows himself to think like that and plan properly for tomorrow.

Furthermore, in a loan signing it's not a case of who's the biggest club to express an interest; it's where do Chelsea want him to go? If Mourinho decides he wants to keep him in London, if he thinks the Palace style is something Zouma can learn from, if he trusts Pardew to manage his protege correctly, then there's no reason it's not possible. Given Jose's often expressed fondness for Palace, why would this be out of the realms? Loans of players like Zouma boil down to the best environment for them to develop, not the biggest club they can go to.

The bottom line is that this rumour hasn't gone away for a month now. Yes, I agree it seems unlikely but I don't think it's flat out stupid. Nothing will happen until Chelsea get back from America as I suspect Jose will want to give Zouma a full pre-season but I do think it's a slim possibility. I also think it would be our most impressive signing in a very long time, if it did come off.

Not pointless, and it's why Jose Mourinho is such a great manager. He's intelligent and open-minded enough to put long-term gain before short-term paranoia, something very rare in modern managers and speaks to his self-confidence. While the likes of Pellegrini simply hoard players and leave them to rot in the reserves (Jack Rodwell, anyone?), Mourinho is sensible enough to realise that a very young player will be more use to him in the long-term with a year of real Premiership experience under his belt. He has Terry and Cahill and likely has some experienced cover too, perhaps not as good as Zouma but still, the benefits of Zouma playing every week will be a huge advantage to Chelsea in years to come. Because Mourinho is one manager who doesn't worry about his job security today, he allows himself to think like that and plan properly for tomorrow.

Furthermore, in a loan signing it's not a case of who's the biggest club to express an interest; it's where do Chelsea want him to go? If Mourinho decides he wants to keep him in London, if he thinks the Palace style is something Zouma can learn from, if he trusts Pardew to manage his protege correctly, then there's no reason it's not possible. Given Jose's often expressed fondness for Palace, why would this be out of the realms? Loans of players like Zouma boil down to the best environment for them to develop, not the biggest club they can go to.

The bottom line is that this rumour hasn't gone away for a month now. Yes, I agree it seems unlikely but I don't think it's flat out stupid. Nothing will happen until Chelsea get back from America as I suspect Jose will want to give Zouma a full pre-season but I do think it's a slim possibility. I also think it would be our most impressive signing in a very long time, if it did come off.

I can't help thinking of this guy though every time I see/hear his name mentioned.

I think that if we take a 20 year old centre back on loan it will make local youngsters think twice about signing for our academy and more and more of our existing academy players will think about doing an Egbo