Wow….
Atletico Madrid set a Sunday night deadline for Conor Gallagher to agree to move there, after the Spanish club negotiated a €40m deal with Chelsea. We thought even by mid-afternoon that the silence from most sources meant it wasn’t going to happen.
Then, somehow at 2:30AM, the news came through with a Tweet from Fabrizio Romano. Gallagher has accepted the move. A five year contract is expected, with Romano teasing that he will give his trademark “here we go” to the deal later today, all being well.
There will be more “formal steps” to move through, but it sounds like it’s happening. That money becomes “pure profit” for Chelsea’s accounts, and the co-sporting directors get the sale they needed this summer to keep everything afloat.
It’s going to be La Liga’s record move of the window so far – and at the current rate, we can’t see anything bigger coming along. Gallagher becomes the latest academy player to leave, and the latest regular starter to leave for Champions League football.
https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1820274202571604198
Chelsea’s pressure pays off
It seems like the pressure on Gallagher from the club paid off. They convinced him he wouldn’t start often, and perhaps even that he would be forced to train away from the first team. That was what the rumours last week held, and now it seems the midfielder has already played his last for his boyhood club.
Lots of fans are not too happy with the way they’ve seen a popular player treated. If the team perform really well this season and it’s clear Gallagher wouldn’t have fitted in, those concerns will soon fade. However if things go down the pan again this year, you can expect this deal to be held up as another pretty convincing example of the incompetence of those running the football side.
The way “a popular player was treated” was to offer him a contract extension and a wage increase (despite a fairly poor showing at the Euros) and he turned it down—twice. Not sure what delusional world fans are living in if they want to find fault with the way Chelsea handled this business. It is, after all, BUSINESS! Chelsea FC can’t be a charity for “homegrown” players who haven’t proven themselves to be world class, and Conor Gallagher certainly hasn’t reached the level that deserved anything more than he was offered.
may God judge all of you running this nouncense chelsea business and this useless wyatt typing stupid things here..
I concur. Gallagher felt he was in the driving seat to dictate to the contract terms (Salary and length of contract) to the club. Unfortunately he hasn’t reached that world class level to command such terms. He is not a good passer of the ball and lacks technical ability required in Meresca’s possession football. He has work rate no doubt but that’s not the primary characteristics needed in Enzo’s system. Good luck in Athletico Gallagher.