The ideal £25m Conor Gallagher replacement who could thrive at Chelsea this season

Here’s a question that Enzo Maresca needs to answer over the coming four weeks – do Chelsea need to replace Conor Gallagher? The all-action midfielder’s move to Madrid has left the Italian head coach’s side without a player who fits that profile, the kind of Duracell Bunny pressing machine who has the quality in the final third to make a difference with the ball once he’s won it, but is that something that’s necessary for Chelsea to succeed this season?

If the answer is no, then we will likely see more cultured, technical players competing for the slot just in behind the central striker, with the likes of Cole Palmer, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Christopher Nkunku all options. But Gallagher’s relentless energy and work rate made a substantial difference under Mauricio Pochettino last year, as did the five goals and seven assists he racked up in the Premier League. Chelsea are around £34m richer since their academy product left to join Atlético, but also an important player poorer.

Chelsea’s pre-season, for whatever such matches mean, suggests that Maresca’s squad is still lacking. A TV-friendly draw with Wrexham in the United States was followed by heavy defeats to Manchester City (fair enough, perhaps) and to Celtic (less so) – but at least the latter result, as worrying as it was, may have given Chelsea the answer to the question of how Gallagher could be replaced.

Matt O’Riley may be a Danish international who plays his domestic football in Glasgow, but he’s a West London boy, born and raised in Hounslow, just a few long passes away from Stamford Bridge – and from Fulham, whose academy system he emerged from. And when Celtic thumped Chelsea 4-1 in Indiana, it was that West London lad who scored the opening goal, drifting into space inside the area and elegantly slotting home. One right-footed touch to ease the ball into the path of his favoured left, one simple side-footed finish to put the ball into the far corner. The defending was appalling, but the grace of O’Riley’s finish didn’t go unnoticed.

Not that anyone who pays attention to Scottish football didn’t know plenty about him already. O’Riley signed from Milton Keynes Dons for £1.5m back in 2022 and scored 19 goals last season, many of them exceptional. The 23-year-old’s technique and touch have come on in leaps and bounds and he has developed a lethal, seemingly instinctive finishing touch to go with it.

His passing range isn’t too shabby either – he now has 25 SPL assists in the last two campaigns, and the deftness of his final pass has stood out a mile. But he isn’t just another technically-gifted number ten, and he’s also a dervish off the ball, sprinting across the midfield to close opposing players down and putting up a volume of tackles and turnovers that the best defensive midfielders would be proud of.

So it’s no great surprise, really, that Chelsea have been linked with a move for O’Riley by Sky Sports. The numbers behind him are hugely impressive, he has been remarkably consistent for his club, he could fill the hole left by Gallagher’s sale and they’ve seen what he can do up close and personal. The reported price tag is £25m – not chicken feed, but no more than Chelsea have been splashing out on a series of youngsters over the course of a strange summer transfer window.

The bad news for Chelsea is that Maresca and his transfer team won’t have very long to mull a possible move over. Sky Sports also reported on Tuesday that Brighton & Hove Albion have made a bid, while rumours elsewhere suggest that Leicester City and West Ham United are interested, too. Over in Italy, Atalanta have had their advances rebuffed as they struggle to cobble enough cash together. O’Riley’s future will likely be decided before the Premier League season begins, and there is no more time to gain evidence as to whether they need hard graft as well as technical excellence in the attacking midfield slot.

There is plenty of evidence that O’Riley would flourish at the highest level, but naturally there is always the concern that not every player who travels from one side of the Scottish border to the other comes good. For every Henrik Larsson, there have been several equivalents to Giorgios Samaras. But anyone who has seen him take a first-time volley over the shoulder to score on the angle against Hearts, or take two lines of Dundee defenders out of the game with a single chipped pass on the turn, would conclude that he has what it takes to come down on Larsson’s side of the equation.

Gallagher’s departure may prove to be forgivable and may simply have been necessary due to the pressures placed on the club’s finances by the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules – but he was a key player under Pochettino, and while Maresca’s system may be sufficiently different to ensure that Gallagher wouldn’t have been quite as essential, it’s hard to argue that if they do feel the need to find a player who can fill the void then O’Riley is likely as good as it would get. They would even turn an immediate profit over the two transactions, just to make the accountants feel better.

And if O’Riley came to Chelsea and continued to score and set up goals as freely and as elegantly as he did at Celtic, while hassling and harrying his opponents and winning the ball high up the field, then the fans who are frustrated by Gallagher’s sale will probably feel quite a bit better as well. The question is whether this is a race Chelsea will enter – and whether missing out on O’Riley would prove to be a source of regret down the line. Right now, you wouldn’t bet against him.