Ryan Benson of Opta Analyst assesses Tottenham Hotspur's new signing Conor Gallagher, following the England international's arrival from Atletico Madrid in the January transfer window.
After roughly 18 months in LaLiga with Atletico Madrid, Conor Gallagher is returning to London and the Premier League. But having come through the academy at Chelsea and appeared prominently in the Blues’ senior side, he has now signed for Tottenham Hotspur.
It’s another big move for the England international after broadening his horizons with a decent spell in Spain.
And perhaps crucially for him, Gallagher’s return to the Premier League comes with the 2026 FIFA World Cup on the horizon. After only earning a single England cap in 2025, he might argue that playing well in the Premier League gives him a greater opportunity.
Spurs were reportedly not the only Premier League club who tried to sign Gallagher, with Aston Villa rumoured to have been making a move for him - highlighting how the midfielder's stock at home in England has remained high.
Gallagher undoubtedly improves the general depth in Spurs’ midfield, offering an alternative to Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur in front of the back four.
Both Bentancur and Palhinha are highly competent defensively, but Opta's data suggests Spurs struggle to effectively build attacks through them.
Spurs’ total of 519 passes breaking the opposition’s midfield line is only enough to rank them 13th in the Premier League this season. For passes breaking the opposition’s defensive line (87), they are joint 13th.
Those figures may not sound alarming, but you also have to consider that Spurs’ average possession share (50.8 per cent) isn’t among the lowest, meaning their rankings for those metrics are boosted by how much time they spend on the ball.
So, when you look at their total line-breaking passes as a proportion of their overall passes, their rate of 10.3 per cent is the fifth-lowest, suggesting they play safe to a greater degree than most teams.
Spurs’ lack of incisiveness can also be seen in their frequency of through-balls – defined as a pass intended on putting a player through on goal and leading to a goalscoring opportunity by splitting the last line of defence
Their 11 through-balls attempted and four completed are both the fewest in the Premier League this term, hinting that the marriage of passing ability and invention is at a premium with the likes of Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison out injured. For context, Arsenal have recorded the most this season, with 75 (24 completed).
It wouldn’t be fair to pin all of this on Bentancur and Palhinha, both of whom are effective in their own ways.
Gallagher is tidy enough on the ball, his pass-completion rate ranging between 84.6 per cent and 91.5 per cent across the last three and a half seasons of top-flight football – though that doesn’t really tell us a huge amount about the significance of those passes.
More detailed data doesn’t provide a great deal of evidence that Gallagher will bring more incision with passes from the centre of the pitch.
Across his three most recent seasons in the Premier League, Gallagher’s progressive passes per 90 minutes increased from 1.3 – the seventh-fewest among midfielders to play 500+ minutes – to 3.0 and then dropped to 2.4. While the latter two figures – recorded while playing for Chelsea – suggest more forward thinking, he still only ranked 28th and then 44th among his positional peers.
Similarly, he’s never been a prolific passer through the lines, and through-balls aren’t something he’s ever frequently provided. In fact, he attempted just three over a full LaLiga season in 2024/25.
None of this will likely surprise anyone who’s seen Gallagher play at least semi-regularly, though, and therefore it seems clear he’s not been brought in to perform such functions. He’s never been a playmaker who dictates, rather a box-to-box workhorse or wide No 8, so surely there’ll be no expectation from Spurs boss Thomas Frank for him to be a superstar No 6.
Arguably the quality Gallagher is most known for is his work-rate out of possession, the industry he offers in midfield. The fact Diego Simeone wanted to sign him for Atletico in the first place should be seen as an indicator of this and a seal of approval, even if his role has been reduced to frequent substitute this season.
In the 2023/24 Premier League season, Gallagher averaged 44.0 high-intensity pressures per 90 minutes. At face value, it’s a figure that doesn’t look that impressive, given 28 nominal central midfielders (1,000+ minutes) recorded more, but Gallagher was playing for a team who had 59.0 per cent possession over the season.
Among the 28 midfielders above him in the rankings, only five played for teams who’d had more than 50 per cent of the ball. That’s relevant because, generally, players for teams who have less possession make more pressures.
A similar logic can be applied to possession regains. Gallagher’s 6.3 per 90 that season was a decent return in its own right, while only eight midfielders playing for teams with 50+ per cent possession won the ball back more often.
He continued to be impactful out of possession for Atletico, too, ranking in the 78th and 85th percentiles respectively for tackles (2.4) and possession won (5.6) per 90 by midfielders in LaLiga since the start of last season. In that time, Atletico averaged 52.5 per cent possession.
Gallagher’s athleticism hasn’t only manifested itself in impressive defensive output, though.
It’s worth looking back on what was probably his most impressive season in senior football, the 2021/22 campaign, when he was on loan at Crystal Palace.
Gallagher thrived in a box-to-box role, offering Palace plenty of off-ball presence but also influence going forward – perhaps not as a reliable creator, but runs, with and without the ball, into the opposition’s box were a common theme.
Only six nominal central/defensive midfielders bettered his nine shot-ending carries, while he ranked join-ninth among the same players for carries ending in a shot or chance created (17). Similarly, Gallagher’s 10 carries into the opposition’s box was enough to rank joint seventh, and three of those above him played for a Manchester City side who tended to dominate possession.
This part of his game heavily influenced Gallagher’s impressive haul of eight Premier League goals in 2021/22, and his high non-penalty expected goals (xG) of 6.4 (seventh highest among nominal midfielders) reflects the fact most of them came from high-value positions.
Even if you discount the solitary goal from outside the box (a glorious strike into the top-right corner against Everton) and the one deflected effort against Fulham, six would still be a very respectable total.
His manager when he was at Palace, Patrick Vieira, suggested Gallagher potentially had the “quality finishing of a Frank Lampard”, the Chelsea legend, and on-field “passion” of Ray Parlour, Vieira’s former Arsenal team-mate.
However, since that 2021/22 season, Gallagher has only scored 13 goals in 123 league appearances for Chelsea and Atletico. Granted, that tally will have been partly impacted by not always being a guaranteed starter, but that knack of being a goal threat is presumably something Frank will hope to rediscover the magic formula for.
But he’ll also be confident Gallagher can make Spurs a better team off the ball in the final third, too. After all, Spurs have been one of the Premier League’s least effective teams when it comes to pressing high up the pitch in 2025/26.
Their 122 high turnovers is only better than Burnley (116) and Fulham (88) even though Spurs do actively press high; their 11.2 PPDA – opposition passes per defensive action, which measures the intensity of a team's press – is the sixth-lowest of all Premier League clubs, suggesting they are relatively quick to begin hunting the ball after losing it.
Their comparatively low number of high turnovers supports the idea Spurs press can be played through, however.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Frank specifically wants to address this, given his Brentford side ranked in the top six for high turnovers in two of his four seasons in charge of them in the top flight. Gallagher would be no stranger to such an approach.
While at Palace, for instance, the Eagles ranked eighth for high turnovers and Gallagher’s 19 possession regains in the final third put him just outside the top 10 among all midfielders. The Chelsea teams he featured in also tended to press high.
Frank clearly values pressing, Spurs just haven’t been very effective at it. With Dominic Solanke – arguably the best pressing forward in the Premier League – now back in action after a long-term injury and the tireless Gallagher potentially supporting him soon, a change could be on the horizon.
If Gallagher is ultimately part of a bigger plan to improve the midfield and is to be accompanied by a couple of other January arrivals – rather than being Spurs’ only introduction – then there’s plenty to like here. He’s impressed in the Premier League before, and he’ll bring leadership, a strong personality, work ethic and potentially goals.