“I did not want to say this in front of him. But he will go right to the very top.” The look on the face of a teenage Frank Lampard was that of shock and sadness. 18 at the time, he wasn’t the midfield metronome he would go on to become at Chelsea soon after. He wasn’t an England centurion, either. He was just a teenage boy looking for someone to show faith in him. Thankfully, when a West Ham United fan criticized him to his face in a club forum, his uncle—Harry Redknapp—came to his rescue.
Whatever you may think about Redknapp, the unwavering faith he showed in the young boy sitting next to him that day would go on to have an impact that he himself could not have imagined. It just goes to show what wonders a little bit of trust can do. Young players need that trust. Talent and hard work often take them only to the threshold, faith can help them take the next step. Conor Gallagher is a youngster looking for the same at the moment.
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Uncertainty surrounds Gallagher presently. The 21-year-old midfielder will return to Chelsea this summer after a successful loan spell at West Bromwich Albion. Whether he will stay is another question altogether. He has been linked with moves away from Stamford Bridge, both permanent and temporary. The player, meanwhile, has stated his desire to stay and fight for his place in the first team. What happens next? It’s anyone’s guess.
Life out on loan
In 2018, 10 years after he took his first steps through the doors of Cobham, Gallagher found himself on the bus en route to the Olympic Stadium in Baku. Chelsea was due to play London rivals Arsenal in the Europa League final, thousands of miles away from home; Gallagher was among the four academy kids called up by Maurizio Sarri to the final squad.
The youngster had trained with the senior team in the weeks leading up to the final and had even made his first appearance for the senior team in a poorly scheduled friendly match. For the midfielder, being named in the team for Baku wasn’t the culmination of his decade-long journey through the academy ranks; rather, it was the first step toward senior football.
Sarri left Chelsea that summer to be replaced by Lampard, the club great promising to focus more on the academy. The pathway from the youth teams to the senior one isn’t always clear at Stamford Bridge. Ever so often, a young, hopeful starlet gets lost in the limbo of lower-league loans or gets shipped off to one of the distant corners of Europe. The new coaching staff promised a change in approach; Gallagher, trusting them to keep their word, committed his future to Chelsea and left on his first loan to Charlton Athletic.
His first month in the Championship, Gallagher won the EFL Young Player of the Month award. Six months, six goals and four assists later, Chelsea pulled the midfielder out of the sinking ship at Charlton and sent him to Steve Cooper’s high-flying Swansea City. Gallagher was tasked with more creative responsibilities by Cooper, and he responded by registering seven assists in the space of five months. Those who watched him knew that the youngster was destined for the top. His first taste of the Premier League experience followed shortly with West Bromwich Albion taking him on loan last term.
The good and the bad
Chelsea has lacked a true box-to-box midfielder since the departure of Lampard, or at least one who is as efficient inside the box as him. Mason Mount was expected to be Lampard’s successor in that regard, but his more advanced role in Thomas Tuchel’s system means that the responsibilities on his shoulders are different. Gallagher fits that profile better than Mount. The 21-year-old plays deeper, often in a midfield pivot or a three. He is tenacious, creative, dynamic, but most importantly, he has mastered the Lampardian craft of arriving in the box just at the right moment. His eight goals in senior football often mirror those scored by the Chelsea legend.
The first word that springs to mind watching Gallagher is energy—a key characteristic of any good box-to-box midfielder. Although the football West Brom played was quite passive—the team built around a strong defensive core rather than attacking principles—Gallagher stood out due to his active, aggressive play style. While at the Hawthorns, the youngster was a pressing machine. His 25.21 pressures per 90 ranked him among the top four percent of his positional peers over the last 365 days across the top five leagues, fbref reveals. Smarterscout rated his defending intensity 98/99 and his ability to disrupt opposition moves 76/99, painting him as one of the most active midfielders in the league defensively.
However, Gallagher can often be too aggressive in his approach. He is not as skilled as some of his counterparts in winning the ball back cleanly; 43 fouls and 11 bookings last term testament to the fact. Nevertheless, the youngster is equally adept at winning fouls, he was fouled 63 times by opponents in the league last season per fbref.
Apart from being an aggressive presser, Gallagher is also a good ball carrier. Smarterscout rates his carry and dribble volume 93/99, indicating that the youngster likes to move with the ball frequently. While Gallagher’s overall ball-carrying numbers are quite low—probably something to do with how little of the ball West Brom saw per game—he did record 0.32 carries into the penalty area per 90 over the last year, which ranked him in the 84th percentile.
Chelsea currently lacks a dynamic runner with the ball from deep who can take it all the way into the box and then do something with it. While both Mateo Kovacic and N’Golo Kante are capable of bringing the ball up field, they lack the final product. Luckily, that is something Gallagher possesses. The youngster recorded two goals and two assists in 30 matches at West Brom, which makes up 10 percent of the total goals the team scored in the league. Nonetheless, he will need to improve his numbers if he wants to play that role for Chelsea.
What next?
Gallagher’s future remains up in the air. The 21-year-old is contracted to the club until 2025, therefore, there is no pressure on them to sell him immediately. Nonetheless, the youngster has been linked with a permanent move away from the club, with Crystal Palace among those looking to sign him. Another outcome—perhaps the most likely one–is that he leaves on loan to another Premier League side. The player, however, has done enough to warrant a place in the Chelsea squad for the 21/22 season.
The young midfielder played more minutes (2,531) last season in the Premier League than Kante, Jorginho or Kovacic. Barring the seven penalties which Jorginho scored, Gallagher had the most goal contributions among the four and recorded the highest non-penalty xG + xA (3.4). He had more shots overall and per 90, as well as more shots on target, despite playing for a largely passive side. Defensively, Gallagher recorded more pressures than the three. Meanwhile, he had a similar number of interceptions and tackles as the former two.
Chelsea will compete in six competitions next term: Premier League, Champions League, Super Cup, Club World Cup, FA Cup and EFL Cup. That should provide Gallagher the opportunity to get into the senior team. Although the Blues already have four midfielders for the two central positions—and they have been linked with Declan Rice—Gallagher offers a unique skill-set. He offers dynamism, creativity and a tangible finished product from the middle of the pitch without sacrificing defensive responsibility.
There are, of course, areas in need of improvement. Gallagher is still in his formative years and, as stated in the previous section, will need to improve his numbers. The chance to play in a much more attacking team than West Brom should help him do so. He also needs to work on his discipline without losing his aggression, which he can learn from watching and playing alongside Kante and Jorginho.
Gallagher offers something fresh and different. His numbers from last season do not speak of a youngster trying to find his feet in the fast-paced action of the Premier League, but a mature professional playing a key role within his team. To us, he doesn’t seem like a player in need of another loan. What he needs is trust—from his club and his coach—and he can go to the top. Right to the very top.
What do you think the future holds for Gallagher? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!