Chelsea welcome back a former friend in David Luiz in tonight's London derby with Arsenal, but Blues fan RORY JENNINGS explains why the Champions League-winning hero won't get the red carpet treatment
David Luiz is a clown. Now, there is nothing particularly controversial or insightful about me saying that - the general consensus of football support would agree with that sentiment.
What is surprising, though, is quite how well he had me and a lot of other Chelsea fans fooled.
I was genuinely gutted when he opted to throw his Chelsea legacy in the Thames and sign for Arsenal.
My Gunners-supporting cousin was aghast at his arrival, while I was adamant that this was an excellent move from his perspective.
Luiz's betrayal hurt but I was also under the incorrect impression that Chelsea had gifted Arsenal not only a class player, but also the exact player that they have been missing since Ashley Cole signed for Chelsea – a proven winner.
I loved Luiz at Chelsea. Sitting in the opposite end of the Allianz Arena and watching him aggressively score his pivotal penalty in the Champions League final will forever live with me.
Watching him defend with a resoluteness that John Terry would admire and kick-start our attacks in a way comparable only to the great Cesc Fabregas in the year Antonio Conte took us to the title was a thing of beauty.
However, in a career that has been consistently punctuated with terrible performances and lapses in concentration so bad that you conclude he must be idiot, he does have the potential to be the best and most important player on the pitch.
And it would be totally in-keeping with his character to pull one of those performances out of the bag tonight. He has done it before.
In 2015 while playing for Paris Saint-Germain he returned to Stamford Bridge to knock us out of the Champions League, scoring the winning goal in the process. One thing that will certainly be different from that night is the reception that David Luiz will be given pre-match.
Before the PSG fixture, he was lauded a hero. He was a Spartan in Munich and we made sure he knew how grateful we were.
Tonight will not be that. He will be jeered, booed and lambasted at every opportunity and I cannot wait for it.
He crossed the divide, leaving us in the lurch. In a time when we felt we needed him for so many reasons he turned his back on us. We had a transfer ban, an inexperienced manager, a young team in need of guidance and a plethora of injuries... but still, off he went.
Combine that with that fact that not many of us were aware of the brilliance of Fikayo Tomori and we felt Luiz leaving was going to hamper our season.
Turns out, David Luiz was going to hamper Arsenal's season while actually invigorating ours. We got a moody, distracting presence off our books making way for the likes of Tomori to shine and Arsenal have conceded goal after goal thanks to his errors despite relentlessly protesting his innocence.
Goals against Liverpool, Tottenham and Watford (off the top of my head) have all been done to the 'geezer's' slip-ups and they have contributed to Chelsea being a mere 10 points ahead of Arsenal going into tonight's game.
In hindsight, I am relieved he left - he is someone else's problem now. There was a time when Luiz's name was mentioned in the same breath as Osgood, Zola, Terry and Lampard. Now though, he is dining with the likes of Judas Iscariot and William Gallas. Grim.