Ademola Lookman's deadline day loan move to RB Leipzig was the player's own decision, according to Everton manager Sam Allardyce.
The Toffees boss was speaking after his side's 2-1 win over Leicester City, in which another winger - Theo Walcott - scored a first-half brace to ensure the Merseyside outfit's first win in eight games.
But fans before kick-off were puzzled when a deal to send England U21 international Lookman to German side Leipzig for the remainder of the campaign was announced by the club.
That came just days after Allardyce had spoken of his intentions to keep the 20-year-old at Goodison Park after the sale of Aaron Lennon to Burnley reduced his options out wide.
But having made one Premier League start this term, the promising Lookman - signed from Charlton Athletic a year ago for £11 million - was given the option to choose where he spent the second-half of the season and opted for the temporary switch to Leipzig.
"Lookman had better options than Leipzig but he got his own way"
"I think it's one of the most unusual situations I've been in, where we've got some deals for him but he's adamant he chooses Germany," Allardyce said. "It was his choice. We let him go where he wanted to.
"Going and not being able to speak the language at such a young age, and on your own, is a massive challenge. We tried to persuade him not to because I think that's a big challenge for his development.
"We wanted him to go out on loan in the hope that he's going to play first-team football every week. We had a much better opportunity to give him that.
"But [through] his stubbornness, he got his own way in the end. I hope he proves us all wrong because it's very important for him and very important for us that he goes and develops out there.
"They're in a very good position in the Bundesliga so it'll be interesting to see and I hope he is very successful because that brings him back here and he becomes a threat in our squad and our first team next season."
Allardyce baffled by Klaassen's failure to seal Napoli loan
Summer signing Davy Klaassen - brought in by the manager's predecessor Ronald Koeman from Ajax for £24 million - also saw a proposed deadline day loan move to Napoli fall through.
Shedding some light on why the deal was scuppered, Allardyce revealed: "I've got the weirdest situation on Klaassen, about sporting contracts. They were the difficulty.
"I can't quite expand on that but a sporting contract that he has with a sporting company was part of the reason why it failed. God knows why or how.
"This is one of the biggest or best moves he could have had in Europe. For whatever reason, or whoever's fault it was, it failed.
"We're disappointed but he should be far more disappointed than us that he's still here and not playing in Napoli and the Italian league. I don't know why they couldn't get over the hurdles put in front of them, but they didn't."