A Progress Report on Chelsea's New Defensive Star Kurt Zouma

Not a lot was expected of Kurt Zouma at Chelsea this season.

Indeed, much wasn't known about him.

The questions were those that surround most youngsters: How fast is he? Is his positioning any good? Can he tackle? Can he defend? Was he worth the investment?

After a mixed pre-season and few appearances between then and Christmas, we still weren't sure.

Now we are.

When we talk about the progress of Zouma, it's clear what we've witnessed since the turn of the year.

We've seen a boy become a man; he's earned his stripes and taken the rite of passage.

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At 20, he still has much more to learn, but Jose Mourinho now knows he has much more than potential on his hands. He has a player.

The big concern for any youngster, whether he has come through a club's academy or been signed for big money, is if they have more than potential.

In the grand scheme of things, the £12 million Chelsea paid Saint-Etienne is loose change when we consider the fees being splashed out at present.

If Zouma doesn't live up to his billing, though, that suddenly becomes a significant loss.

The early signs are that it'll be the former—a wise investment that will yield significant returns in the years to come.

What's impressed most about Zouma is how he has handled the expectation and pressure.

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The Frenchman hasn't played the majority of his football at a time when the pressure has been off. There weren't appearances at the start of the season, when Chelsea could afford to drop points knowing they had the best part of nine months to make them up.

He came in at a time when Chelsea needed him—and he didn't fail.

Forget ability, that took considerable character. It took discipline, maturity and, above all else, belief.

That's what Mourinho wants to see in his players.

The Chelsea boss knows that anyone with a bit of talent can turn on the style and bulldoze opponents at various stages of the campaign.

But what happens when something is resting on it? What happens when a player knows he must perform for an entire game and that there isn't anywhere to hide when things go wrong?

It's no longer about playing on instinct any more—it's about being intelligent and showing enough to be unaffected by pressure.

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Those who refuse to shy away from responsibility are the players who go on to become champions. It's those who play out of position in their first appearance in a major cup final at Wembley and look a natural who go on to achieve greatness.

That's what we've seen from Zouma.

He's barely out of his teens, yet he has senior look about him. Any doubts have been lifted. He's answered the big questions surrounding him, and the challenge now is for him to ensure the debate doesn't continue.

From proving he has the mentality to cope with being a Chelsea player, Zouma's next big test is living up to what Mourinho expects from him.

When Mourinho compared him to Marcel Desailly after the Capital One Cup final, it wasn't an attempt to boost the player's ego—it was a public challenge. Zouma has the ability to reach those heights, and Mourinho now expects him to.

He's goading him but in the best possible way. Mourinho has seen what he can achieve and is testing him to get there.

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It's those moments that outline how much Zouma has already developed at Chelsea, a point Mourinho has inadvertently discussed himself.

"We bought him because of his physical profile, but we were not happy with his tactical knowledge of the game," Mourinho said of Zouma earlier this season.

"We trusted we could give that to him. In pre-season, I saw mistakes in Germany against Werder Bremen. Mistakes in Hungary against Ferencvaros. I thought: 'No problem, it will take time.' He’s bright, humble, wants to work and learn, listens and is intelligent, so he’s had an acceleration in that process to bring him to a level where he is competing with Gary Cahill."

Zouma's developed from raw talent into real talent.

Saint-Etienne were robbed.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes