Tottenham Hotspur raised a few eyebrows around world football when they agreed to pay a whopping 40 million euros to Atletico Madrid for Conor Gallagher, who had been riding the bench as one of the Rojiblancos worst players - someone the La Liga giants were pretty much desperate to get rid of. Spurs paid Atleti substantially more money than Aston Villa would have for the former Crystal Palace and Chelsea man, as Johan Lange slammed the panic buy button after an injury to backup Rodrigo Bentancur.
Gallagher has proceeded to do absolutely nothing in the early going for Tottenham, and while it is still too soon to call him a transfer flop, the England international looks exactly like the player Chelsea and Atletico got rid of for a reason.
Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur still need more midfield help. Lucas Bergvall has joined Bentancur with a serious injury and is a more important player to Spurs than the Uruguayan international. Plus, Spurs have a gaping hole for a controlling midfielder who can make plays from deep, as neither Gallagher nor Bentancur even are that profile of player.
Tottenham are being linked with him again
Well, neither is the next midfielder Spurs are being linked to on the transfer market. Atletico Madrid are eyeing Bayern Munich veteran Leon Goretzka as a possible signing to replace Conor Gallagher, and now transfer journalist Matteo Moretto is reporting that Tottenham have asked the Bavarian giants about the former Schalke star this winter.
Tottenham have been linked to Goretzka before, and while those transfer rumors were rubbished, Moretto bringing them back adds credence that the links are real. And if Spurs were willing to pay up for Gallagher, then going after another inflated and overpaid "name" box to box midfielder like Goretzka then makes sense as the exact kind of transfer misstep Spurs could very well make.
Goretzka was briefly a great player between the 2017/18 and 2019/20 seasons, but he has been terrible since then. He is on massive wages, and Bayern have been trying so hard to get rid of him but he has literally refused to leave because of the money he makes.
Tottenham signing Gallagher was bad enough, but Goretzka would be even worse. Goretzka is even worse technically and offensively, his production over the past five years has been one of the worst midfielders in the Bundesliga despite playing on a dominant team, and his wages are insane - even higher than Gallagher's. Goretzka is the definition of a player to avoid at all costs, even as a free agent in June.