Chelsea’s midfield changes this summer promise to be almost total, with basically only January Enzo Fernandez seemingly safe from the total clear out coming.
Jorginho and Denis Zakaria are gone, N’Golo Kante is out of contract, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mateo Kovacic look set to follow, as does Mason Mount.
So far we’ve not heard so much about Conor Gallagher. Given everyone else is going, we suspected he might stay, especially given how consistently he was playing by the end of the campaign.
There’s also the sense that he’s the kind of player that Mauricio Pochettino will like.
But Football London today reports that “there is a growing expectation” that he will “leave the club on a permanent basis.”
The club need to cash in on plenty of their first team stars, especially home grown ones, to balance the books. But selling Gallagher feels like a false economy as he would just have to be replaced anyway.
We will learn a lot more about the club’s real plans over the next few weeks, but so far there has been no real concrete contact about a permanent move for Gallagher, with only Newcastle vaguely linked. Until we hear a lot more new about a potential sale, we remain confident that Pochettino is planning to use him next season.
Equally if we go out tomorrow and spend €80m on Moises Caicedo, we will suddenly get a strong sense that Gallagher could go.