Michael Essien to... Real Madrid?!

Where oh where can Michael Essien be going? Surely it'd be to a team that needs midfield cover, that can give him a chance to recover from that knee injury and perhaps the playing time he wouldn't get at Chelsea?

Our man in Monaco, John Cross, has got off the blower with this intriguing tidbit:

Chelsea are going to loan Michael Essien to... Real Madrid! But ONLY if Lassana Diarra completes his mooted move to Anzi Makhachkala.

-Source: Mirror.

Oh. And it's not just the Mirror; we're hearing this from more or less everywhere. Just why Chelsea would be content to let Essien go to Real Madrid, who have a midfield about ten billion times better than ours, is a bit of a mystery. He's a replacement for Lassana Diarra? Ok then, but I don't see how this does anything but weaken the Blues, who already aren't in the best of shape in central midfield. We'll see how this plays out, but... weird.