Our long national nightmare is finally over. According to Fabrizio Romano, Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher has verbally agreed to move to Atletico Madrid, bringing to a close a saga involving Tottenham Hotspur that has lingered for months.
It’s Gallaghover.
I won’t go fully into all of the ~~~DRAMA~~~ that went into the Gallagher saga over the weekend, except to say that there were reports that he was banished from Chelsea’s first team, but then wasn’t, and was maybe given an ultimatum after rejecting another two year contract extension, but wanted to stay in London but also maybe not?
It’s complicated. And frankly, he’s not a Spurs player so ultimately who cares?
So on the one hand the fact that Gallagher is moving to Atletico for €40m after Chelsea reportedly quoted Spurs figures as high as £65m is super annoying, but there’s also some background info that suggests Spurs maybe weren’t as into him as previously thought? Tottenham were one of two Premier League clubs interested in Gallagher with the other club reportedly being Aston Villa, who had a bid for Conor rejected earlier in the window. I think there’s a decent chance Gallagher would’ve been very good for Spurs and we know Ange Postecoglou really liked him, but Occam’s Razor also suggests that the simplest reason he’s not holding up a lilywhite shirt right now is that Chelsea just didn’t want to sell to Spurs. And, y’know, fair enough?
Honestly I’m just glad that this is over and we can stop talking about it. Time to move on.