Tottenham Hotspur surprised a lot of people on Monday afternoon by signing Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid, ending on and off again transfer speculation that has existed for at least a year between the former Chelsea player and the North London giants.
The Gallagher transfer pretty much comes in direct response to the injury to veteran center midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur, whose ailment in the loss to Bournemouth ended up being considerably more severe than expected. Many fans assumed Benta would only miss a couple of games with a hamstring issue, but, as it turns out, he tore the hamstring and may require surgery in what is a multi month injury.
So enter Gallagher, who was mostly a backup for Atletico Madrid, becoming the latest player to make a failed transfer from the Premier League to the Spanish capital. Gallagher has never been a star player, and whlie he is a decent footballer, the fee of 40 million euros for the 25 year old is also quite steep and a good bit more than Aston Villa were planning on paying Atletico for him before Spurs came barging in like the Kool Aid man.
Tottenham are doing the most, and it's not good
To make matters even worse than that for Tottenham Hotspur, though, not only are the club paying Atletico Madrid a boat load of money for Conor Gallagher, but they are also giving him a pretty bloated contract.
According to a report from talkSPORT transfer insiders Ben Jacobs and Alex Crook, Gallagher has agreed to sign a 5.5 year deal with Tottenham and will soon travel for his medical to make this long term deal with Spurs offiical.
Tottenham are basically going to have Gallagher under contract through the age of 30, which is pretty wild and a slap in the face to Lucas Bergvall. See, Thomas Frank and Tottenham have not been playing their best No. 8 and their midfield star of the future in his preferred position, and when they needed a No. 6 even more after Bentancur went down, they simply went ahead and signed a No. 8 who will just eat into Bergvall's (and Pape Matar Sarr's) minutes.
It is especially puzzling for Tottenham to commit so many years to Gallagher, whom Atletico Madrid, like Chelsea before them, were pretty blatantly desperate to sell. This all feels like another giant misstep by Spurs born out of desperation, and Bergvall is going to be the one holding the back at the end of it. Maybe he, too, like Micky van de Ven will begin to dream of Real Madrid and old suitors Barcelona as an escape.