Brendan Rodgers has spoken out on Wesley Fofana's decision to leave Leicester and join Chelsea, claiming that there were "other influences" involved in taking him away from the Foxes - and that the defender was not behind the controversial statement posted on his social media.
The Leicester boss came under immense scrutiny during the final weeks of the transfer window as speculation built over his star defender as the former-Liverpool boss slowly backed down from saying his player wasn't for sale until admitting that he was no longer training with the first team.
Fofana completed a £70million deal to join Chelsea earlier this week after intense talks between the two parties as Todd Boehly managed to work a fee to below a world record number for a defender, with the total price with add-ons amounting to £75million.
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Leicester themselves have had a poor start to the season and haven't been able to purchase any players until deadline day due to financial issue and relying on the income of a big money sale. Youri Tielemans and James Maddison have both been the subject of interest from other Premier League sides but Fofana was the one that attracted the most advanced offers, and Rodgers has publicly admitted how tough the situation was for his side.
Speaking before Leicester's match against Manchester United, Rodgers said: "Well it clearly is difficult [to deal with player power]. Listen, I'll always defend players and I'll defend Wesley here because obviously there was a lot of noise out there around him and what was said.
"I never get too emotional with words, I try to look at the logic of it, and I know where the statement came from, and I know it wasn't Wesley Fofana. So this kid's a good kid. We brought him in here, nobody knew him really, he came in, we gave him a great platform here, he played for us, he was amazing. We'd hoped he could stay on at least another year before he would move on but he's taken the possibility to go.
"It's a shame for us, it's a shame how it ended, a little bit, but for me he's a good guy and I know that probably other influences have taken him away from the club."
Fofana has been vocal with his delight at signing for Chelsea, already posting two Instagram posts related to his Chelsea move, attracting plenty of Blues fans to praise their new centre-back. In the statement written on Instagram, Fofana said: "I chose not to communicate during this transfer window despite all the criticism and often false and misleading comments, even when they were coming from the club. I learned.
"I didn’t want to damage the institution and chose to take it rather than answer. I thank Top (Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester owner) for his understanding, thanks to the managers, to the coach who has always appreciated me, even if he chose to expose me a lot lately... I got it coach."
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