Todd Boehly’s terrible decisions at Chelsea have created this unnecessary situation, but the need for Victor Osimhen is greater than the need for Conor Gallagher, and £60m is a lot of money for a midfielder with no goals from 32 shots…
Bleak, disgraceful, sickening, disrespectful: all words that could – and have been – used to describe Chelsea’s willingness to part with Conor Gallagher this month. Tottenham’s interest remains piqued after they saw a £40m deadline-day bid rejected in the summer. They’re ready to stretch to £50m; Chelsea want £60m.
Emmanuel Petit assumed rumours of his departure were “a joke”. “For me, identity is very important,” he said, insisting young English players like Gallagher can provide that sense of self. Jamie Carragher claimed the situation epitomises the “mess” Todd Boehly and Clearlake have created at Stamford.
Neither of them are wrong, but £60m for Gallagher? It feels like we’re losing perspective in the quest to be outraged. That’s a lot of money.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons to hate the idea.
Gallagher’s been at Chelsea since he was eight years old; having sold ten academy graduates in the last three seasons, it would hurt to lose another one. Particularly when said academy graduate has been one of the best players this season and been the de facto captain in the absence of Reece James and Ben Chilwell. Chelsea need more leaders, not fewer.
Selling him over countless other inferior footballers because he would be ‘pure profit’ in the FFP stakes is clinical, nauseating and everything that’s wrong with modern football. There would be no need to sell him if the owners hadn’t spent £1bn on Cole Palmer and some also-rans. Selling him to Tottenham shows that those owners either don’t know or don’t care about fan sentiments.
The fans want Gallagher to stay. Gallagher wants to stay. Mauricio Pochettino wants Gallagher to stay.
But, if selling Gallagher gets you Victor Osimhen, Chelsea have to do it.
It’s almost certainly not as simple as that. Chelsea could sell other players. Chelsea may not actually need to sell to buy despite the constant chatter over the need to balance books. As football finance expert Kieran Maguire explained last month, the Blues are well placed to spend again in January.
“Over the last decade [Chelsea’s] player sale profits — which is the figure used for Financial Fair Play/Profit and Sustainability Rules calculations — were £706m, nearly twice as much as the second most successful Big Six club Liverpool at £387m, and Manchester United have only generated £133m. These player sales allow Chelsea some flexibility in terms of potential recruitment in the January window.”
It’s not clear whether there’s £112m worth of “flexibility” there; let’s assume there’s not. Does it make financial or footballing sense to turn down £60m for a guy with 18 months left on his contract when that money can take you a long way to signing Osimhen, a player the club desperately needs, when Gallagher – if we’re being brutally honest – won’t be in the team next season if Chelsea make the progress they covet?
Cue ex-pros insisting “top teams need players like Gallagher!” To which we would ask: where’s Manchester City’s Gallagher?
He ranks fourth for ball recoveries (130) in the Premier League and fourth for tackles and interceptions combined (79) – he’s a brilliant nuisance. But he ranks eighth at Chelsea for shot-creating actions per 90 (3.22), sixth for key passes (1.41), and he’s had 32 shots and is yet to score this season. In an attacking sense, he’s been poor.
If any three of Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Carney Chukwuemeka, Cole Palmer or Christopher Nkunku get close to their potential – a stretch admittedly, but that would only be a 50% hit rate – Gallagher won’t be in the Chelsea team. That would assume they split Gallagher’s extraordinary work-rate between them, but isn’t that sort of the idea? That’s what they do at City.
Terrible decisions from the Chelsea owners thus far have created this situation, and selling Conor Gallagher to fund a move for a striker they should and could have bought with the £200m they spent on average centre-backs is horrible. And though it would be more palatable to sell almost anyone other than Gallagher right now, the reason it would be easier to stomach is also the reason no-one is interested in anyone else
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