Paul Merson has been speaking on Sky Sports where he made his feelings about one Chelsea player very clear.
Conor Gallagher has been our best player this season after Cole Palmer, and he has cemented his place as one of the best all-action midfielders in the league. Yet because of our financial situation there’s endless talk about him being sold to balance the books.
Merson thinks this would be a terrible idea:
“If they sell Conor Gallagher, it’s five steps back,” he said on Soccer Saturday yesterday.
“I am a big Conor Gallagher fan, he gives you absolutely everything. I think he gets into virtually every team, probably Man City he doesn’t get into, any other team, I think he gets into. I would even go as far as to say at Arsenal you would, go and get him at Arsenal where you have got [Declan] Rice, [Martin] Odegaard and Gallagher.
“He gives you everything. He gives you energy, he gives you goals and he closes down. He is a fan’s dream. Everybody wants a trier.”
A disaster waiting to happen
We are massive fans of Gallagher and are in total agreement with Merson that selling him would be a massive step back for a team that needs steps forward.
As we see it, the urgent needs for this Chelsea team are at left back, centre back and centre forward. We have decent players in all those positions, but could do with a really top class option.
But would it be worth sacrificing Gallagher for an upgrade in any of them? Probably not. He brings so much to the team and the squad that it’s hard to see where the trade off would be worth it. Given the cash we’ve seen squandered over the last two years, we have zero faith that the £40m or so we would get in return for the academy product would be spent wisely enough to upgrade the team at all.
Sometimes the best move is to not play at all. This could be one of those occasions.
