Former Chelsea head coach Frank Lampard wanted Chelsea to offload Antonio Rudiger instead of Fikayo Tomori.
That's according to The Athletic, who say Lampard was at odds with the Chelsea board over whether to allow Rudiger or Tomori to leave the club even before the season began.
In the end, it was Tomori who departed, but in January, joining Serie A giants AC Milan on loan until the end of the season and his departure could be for good.
That's because Chelsea allowed Milan to insert an option to buy in the Tomori loan deal, understood to be worth £27million, and should the Italians decide to take that up, the Blues will be resigned to losing the defender.
But that's not how former boss Lampard - who eventually lost his job in January - wanted it to go.
According to The Athletic, while Lampard had reservations over Tomori from training, particularly with his ability in the air, he did think the 23-year-old could have a future at Chelsea.
Instead, Lampard preferred to offload Antonio Rudiger, who made a surprise return to Chelsea's starting lineup late in Lampard's reign, before the start of the season.
The issue for Lampard was that Rudiger was still 'held in high regard' by the Chelsea hierarchy, and Blues chief Marina Granovskaia also understood she and Chelsea would not receive an offer good enough to sell the German centre-back during the pandemic.
That impasse meant Tomori was to be offloaded on loan, but by the time all this had been ironed out, it's reported that Tomori's best loan offers had already disappeared with Everton looking elsewhere.
West Ham did make a late offer to sign Tomori in the summer window, but the centre-back decided to stay and fight for his place, a decision he may well have regretted having only made one Premier League appearance all season.
And that is, perhaps, why Tomori seemed to need no convincing to join AC Milan when the Italian giants came sniffing in the January transfer window.
Meanwhile, Rudiger remains at the club and he will, no doubt, feel he has a fresh start under new boss and fellow countryman Thomas Tuchel, starting all of the new head coach's first five Premier League games so far.
