What impact will this long-term injury to a key Chelsea player have?

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A positive for one individual?

One man who must have been grinding his jaw slightly at Kurt Zouma’s continued success in Chelsea’s starting line-up is Gary Cahill. Once seen as another ultra-reliable defender to play alongside John Terry, Zouma’s mighty surge to prominence put pay to hopes of the former Bolton defender holding down a regular place in the team. Guus Hiddink has not been particularly keen to rotate the side since the start of his second tenure at the club, and so even when many expected John Terry to be granted a rest and Cahill to come in as his replacement, Hiddink frequently opted to stick with the Terry-Zouma axis that had served him well. It may not necessarily mean that the Dutchman lacks faith in Chelsea’s number 26, but there is not much choice left any more.

While he could not begrudge Zouma’s permanent berth in Chelsea’s team too much, Gary Cahill must have been genuinely fearing for his Euro 2016 hopes. Before the former St. Etienne man suffered the horrendous knee injury, you could not see too many first-team appearances in the pipeline for Cahill and with plenty of other Englishman having the chance to build up a run of form and impress Roy Hodgson in the remaining weeks of the season, there really was a risk that Cahill would miss the plane. Chris Smalling; dominant at the back for Manchester United for much of this campaign, is almost a definite starter for England in France, and now that Cahill should enjoy a prolonged run in the Chelsea team, it is more than likely that he will join the former Fulham centre-back. It is strange how these things happen sometimes, but Kurt Zouma’s loss is surely Gary Cahill’s gain.