For some odd reason, Johan Lange decided that spending 40 million euros on Conor Gallagher and no other established players in the winter transfer window would be exactly what Tottenham Hotspur needed. Fast forwar a couple of months later, and Spurs are in the relegation battle, with the lack of January reenforcements partially to blame for their predicament.
Meanwhile, Gallagher has done very little to help Spurs fortunes, but after watching Tottenham take care of business at home against Atletico Madrid with a 3-2 victory, two sentiments have set in. The first is that Gallagher is an even more useless signing than the cynics would have predicted at the time. But secondly, part of what makes him such a useless signing is actually the positive development for Spurs that Archie Gray and Callum Olusesi are better than expected.
Tottenham did give Gallagher a bit of a run around against his former employers, as he came on in the 80th minute and did his usual bit of nothingness to close out the game. As anyone could have told Lange and Spurs, Gallagher offers nothing creatively and is poor going forward, and even his defensive work is mediocre at best. Nothing in the last couple of weeks has changed these assertions on the former Atletico Madrid transfer flop's game.
Tottenham's young guns are better than Conor Gallagher
So the real reason Gallagher's transfer looks even worse is how unnecessary is looks in hindsight. Pape Matar Sarr was brilliant over the weekend against Liverpool and just as good this week against Atletico Madrid, too. Olusesi has come on strong as a real X-Factor from the youth phase, and he now has a real spot in the first team squad. And Lucas Bergvall returned from injuruy to make a second half mark for Spurs against Atleti as well.
Gray and Sarr are both starting caliber players for Tottenham, as they have proven in recent matches. Bergvall is as big of a gem as Gray, and both men are future superstars and building blocks for this team. Conor Gallagher should never be in front of them. And now with Olusesi, even thinking about Gallagher a top rotational option for Spurs is out of the window, especially since Rodrigo Bentancur should not be too far behind Bergvall in returning from injury either.