OPINION
After Everton have finally confirmed the signing of Kurt Zouma from Chelsea, Newcastle will rue missing out on his signature.
The Toffees officially announced his long protracted transfer saga from Chelsea on their official Twitter account.
🇫🇷 | Defender @KurtZouma joins #EFC on a season-long loan from @ChelseaFC.
More ➡️ https://t.co/JdHLN6iDpN pic.twitter.com/IzIHxBTahN
— Everton (@Everton) August 10, 2018
The French central defender joins the Merseyside club on a season-long loan deal, giving Marco Silva an extra option in central defence ahead of the new Premier League season.
However, as reported by Turkish outlet Takvim, the Magpies were also interested in signing Zouma on loan back in July.
The Toon will regret missing out on the 6ft 2in (Source: TransferMarkt) defensive colossus as he would have made a massive improvement to Benitez’s defence .
In the end, the club brought in defenders Federico Fernandez and Fabian Schar during the transfer window, with Chancel Mbemba leaving for Porto and Florian Lejeune suffering a long-term knee injury, and they needed to replace the duo.
However, Zouma is a much better option than the two players they’ve signed and they should have gone all out to sign the Chelsea man.
One area in which the Newcastle defence was severely lacking is the pace of their back line, with Mbemba leaving, most of their defenders are very slow and they risk being run ragged by opposition attackers. Only De-Andre Yedlin has any sort of pace.
Neither Schar or Fernandez are quick across the ground – in fact they’re actually quite slow compared to the rest of the squad – which could leave them exposed this season.
Zouma would have solved this issue, not only has he got great physical qualities and is a natural defender, but he is also extremely quick and can keep up with any player in the Premier League.
The 23-year-old is a huge talent and although it would have been another loan, he would have improved the squad more than both Schar and Fernandez.
