After a reported bust-up between him and David Luiz, Frank Lampard has revealed that selling the defender was not a sign of making a mark at the club.

The 32-year-old was concerned over a lack of playing time and Lampard left him out of training on Wednesday, having made him an unused substitute in the final pre-season match against Borussia Monchengladbach. It was a shock when Luiz suddenly became a transfer target of Arsenal, before completing his move 24 hours later.

Speaking in a press conference ahead of their Manchester United clash, Lampard revealed why Luiz made the switch to Arsenal, “I never would have gone out to make any form of a mark. I think it would have been naive to try to flex my muscles or my power. I don’t need to do that. I just play it as I see it, daily.

“I watch how the players train, I watch how the players react in the dressing room, how the spirit is. And then I have to make decisions. And I have to try and create a squad that is in the image of what I want.

Show power

“And I wasn’t saying David wasn’t part of that, but I have to make lots of decisions every day and they are not all about trying to show power, they are just trying to do it my way because the last thing I want to do is look back on these times and go ‘I wish I had done that differently and I didn’t quite do it’.

“So these are decisions that I make daily. So if it looks like that from the outside, it certainly wasn’t how I did it…it was purely football decisions on both sides. Not just the way I was thinking, but the way David was thinking.”