Kurt Zouma has fully ingrained what it means to be Chelsea

Kurt Zouma comes in for his share of criticism and praise, but overall he is the leader of a generation that became Chelsea despite not being made in it.

Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Petr Cech, Frank Lampard. They are all forever associated with Chelsea. Unlike John Terry, however, they all began their careers elsewhere. They were adoptees in blue, but they fully became one with the club just like any academy graduate would.

There is a sense that academy players get what the club means more than their teammates. There is a lot of truth to it, but often lost in that conversation are the players who come from elsewhere and fully adopt everything about the club. Cesar Azpilicueta is a fantastic example. Kurt Zouma can now add himself to the list.

It seems an innocent thing, but Zouma’s comments towards Eduardo Camavinga after the last match told a lot. He simply told the young French midfielder that sometimes you have to go long under pressure instead of playing it tight all the time.

That seems a very innocent comment, but it is one that oozes Chelsea. The last 10-15 years of the game have been dominated by “playing the right way” according to Pep Guardiola’s way. The ball is to be played out of the back, the team is supposed to maintain possession at all costs, and playing long or playing crosses is taboo. Of course, followers of Guardiola’s style generally ignore when he goes long or uses crosses heavily.

That hasn’t been Chelsea’s way though, at least not for 9-14 of those years. The Chelsea way has always been do what works. If the club needs to dominate possession one week, they do that. If they need to shut up shop and hit on the counter the next week, they do that. The right way is the way that works.

No style should be taboo for Chelsea then. That includes playing long balls out of the back to escape pressure in a game where that is increasingly seen as the low skill option. Zouma’s advice to Camavinga shows that he gets it.

Of course, Zouma’s been around the block enough to have adopted that humble style of play for the Blues. His early arrival at Chelsea feels like ages ago, as does his injury that effectively removed him from the club for years. But he came back, maybe a little more world weary, and gradually showed more and more that he got what it meant to be at Chelsea.

He has had his hiccups and criticism still follows him despite his being Chelsea’s best defender. Yes, even the arrival of Thiago Silva hasn’t changed that; it has merely sharpened Zouma up. At the heart of things, however, he is still a player that will do what is necessary to help his team. If that means playing out of the back, he will do it. If it means long balls over the top, he’ll do that too. In short, he’ll play the Chelsea way of the day if it helps his team. He is a Blue, through and through.