Lampard kept David Luiz out of Chelsea training because of ‘disruptive influence’ — report

As the details continue to emerge, it would appear that there is in fact no turning back. David Luiz will most likely become an Arsenal player before the transfer window slams shut at 17:00 BST on Thursday, with the two teams expected to agree a fee between £5-10m, which is not all that great.

That’s the summary from the Telegraph’s Matt Law, who tends to have his ear closest to the ground at Chelsea. And those tremors tell him that the situation has been brewing for about the past week, ever since the RB Salzburg friendly, and that it was head coach Frank Lampard’s decision to keep David Luiz out of training on Wednesday, the first day back since the weekend’s preseason finale. This is contrary to initial reports that David Luiz “refused” to train, though he’s still “believed to have become a disruptive influence”, forcing Lampard into making that decision and setting us down this current path of Transfer Deadline Day drama.

It’s still not quite clear what caused the 32-year-old defender to suddenly become this “disruptive influence”, especially after agreeing a new contract in May and saying all the right things in the media since. Could it really be all due to fears of playing time? Seems a bit of a stretch, but any answer will seem like one in a situation we had all assumed to be hunky-dory.

With Chelsea unable to sign a replacement, it’s expected that Fikayo Tomori will stay with Chelsea instead of heading out on loan, which is a great development in the long-term, but just adds to all the short-term concerns around Chelsea as the rest of the top six go hog-wild in the transfer market.