The Sun are today reporting that Tottenham are keen to sign Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher as early in the summer window as possible, so that he can be integrated into the squad ahead of their preseason tour.
This aligns with Chelsea’s interests too. If they do go ahead with the sale of Gallagher, they want it to be before the June 30th PSR deadline. The Blues need to raise significant funds before then, and the midfielder is a juicy asset they’re clearly thinking about selling.
At that stage the England international will only have a year left on his deal, and there is no work on any successful contract talks just yet. The Sun say we would want at least £40m for our regular captain.
The fact he’s likely to be at the Euros with England across these big deadlines complicates things further.
Furious reaction
As we’ve said many times before, selling Gallagher is likely to produce a dire reaction from the fans.
This is probably another reason for the Chelsea ownership to get any potential deal done as quickly as possible. By taking the massive PR hit right at the start of the summer when there are no games to worry about being abused at, they leave themselves the longest possible break before the team is on the pitch in front of supporters again. They will be hoping this diffuses the anger a little.
Regardless, if Gallagher goes there will be a furious reaction, and only vastly improved results right away will save them from losing any remaining faith from the match going fans.
Such warnings of “dire” reactions from fans were issued when Mason Mount was on the sales block and its worth noting that (a) we look like geniuses in retrospect for getting top value for a player who has really disappointed at Utd; and (b) most of the fans, in fact, booed Mount quite loudly upon his return to Stamford Bridge.
It gives me no satisfaction to say it, but Gallagher is not worth 40m and we MUST sell him if someone is willing to pay that much for him. He’s committed and industrious, but he’s simply not a world-class talent—the kind that we need as our starting #10 if we’re ever going to challenge for league titles anytime soon. We can all love the player and still see that this is a no-brainer from a business standpoint because 40m will go a long way toward financing a move for a world class #9 (or #10).