Zouma is Terry's successor - Mourinho

The Frenchman has made 17 appearances in all competitions so far this season and has been backed to eventually replace current captain John Terry in central defence

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has backed defender Kurt Zouma to replace John Terry as the club's captain.

Zouma has made an impressive start to his Chelsea career, making 17 appearances in all competitions in his first full season following his move from Saint-Etienne in January 2014.

Mourinho believes the 20-year-old is different to Terry, who is poised to sign a new deal at Stamford Bridge, but has tipped him to eventually take the armband from the former England international.

"Terry and Zouma are different players. Sometimes you get replicas of players," the Portuguese manager was quoted as saying by The Mirror.

"Other times you can't do it, and if you can't Zouma now is 20, so one day Zouma will be 23 or 24 and will be a player of great maturity and probably leadership, too, to replace John.

"Zouma is playing more than I expected, more than he expected, more than everyone expected. So he's getting very important experience."

Zouma and Gary Cahill are currently competing for a position in central defence, and Mourinho hopes an international call-up for the Frenchman will help accelerate his development.

"When he gets caps with France and is playing with Chelsea at this level, his development will have an acceleration," Mourinho added.

"We bought him because of his physical profile, but we were not happy with his tactical knowledge of the game.

"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."