Nice and Marseille are the latest sides to have expressed an interested in signing Chelsea defender Kurt Zouma on a season-long loan deal next season, reports France Football, via Get French Football. may be forced to find first-team football elsewhere next season in a bid to make Didier Deschamps’ France squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The 22-year-old barely featured for Chelsea during their Premier League title-winning campaign after recovering from a serious knee injury midway through the season and Antonio Conte is reportedly keen to strengthen his defensive options in the transfer window that would only limit his first-team opportunities further.

However, the France international would not be short of suitors after impressing prior to injury and Nice andMarseille are interesting in handing the powerful central defender a route back to his homeland ahead of next year’s World Cup. Nice  urgently need to sign a new centre-back with captain Paul Baysse set to leave the club when his contract expires this summer and they would go a lot worse than bringing Zouma in on loan before finding a long-term solution. Zouma only clocked up 247 minutes of action in the Premier League and started as many games in the FA Cup as he did in the league this season (3).