It's pretty clear to all that Gallagher exceeded expectations. He came with promise, given he was their Academy player of the year, but had never played senior football and it was clearly a loan to get him some experience.
However he hit the ground running, we were up near the top of the table and he performed so well he got England U21 caps. Chelsea were no doubt very pleasantly surprised.
Then it went wrong. We got hit by a ridiculous number of injuries, tumbled down the table and instead of playing in a midfield and learning from the likes of Pratley, Cullen and Williams, he found himself the mainstay of a midfield that featured a bunch of kids who were playing in non league a few months ago.
Clearly given his early season form and the U21 caps, Chelsea felt (and rightly so) that he's well above the level of a struggling Championship side and want him to express himself in a better team, not having to carry kids (no disrespect to them though) like Dempsey, Morgan and Davison.
People can moan about it and say it's down to money, when if you look at the bigger picture it really isn't. Chelsea don't need his wages covered, or need a loan fee, their only interest is in wanting Gallagher to develop as quickly as possible in order to hopefully be ready for their first team squad soon. And him getting lumps kicked out of him whilst trying to carry a midfield of inexperienced kids isn't the best way to achieve that. He's still a kid himself!
He'll be in the Chelsea squad soon enough, and i've no doubt he'll play for England one day. Good luck to him.
Agree 100%. At the moment from the outside we are a club in turmoil/transition ( delete as appropriate ). I only wonder why they waited up until the last minute before they recalled him? At the moment we still dont have any of our senior players who were injured starting matches and no new experienced players through the door . There are lots of irons in the fire but nothing has landed as yet. Bows still hasnt agreed a contract with MS. I am sure that other clubs would have been talking to Chelsea about Gallagher before the window opened so i am surprised it has taken them this long to recall him. Perhaps they were waiting to see if things improved at Charlton before moving him on ?
Whatever the inside story - the kid gave Charlton 100% every time he played for us. I am gutted that he has left, but we need to make sure that our loan players are the icing on the cake rather than an integral part of the team. Over to you Mr Southall.......
The billy big b running that account.... Connor was learning to play first team football, where points are at stake and the likes of Jason Pearce are putting everything on the line to pay his mortgage. It has nothing to do with the standard of our youth players versus the Chelsea U23’s, you sanctimonious tit.
Surely they would be in conversation with Bowyer and Gallen and would have known we have players coming back from injury, as well as a new owner and apparent financial backing to get better players in.
So, he had to step up even more to compensate for the less experienced players around him and they think that’s a bad thing ? Looking good when the rest of the team is so experienced they are running rings around the opposition, laying on accurate passes to you, making up for the lack of experience you have and winning games is probably a lot less harder than being the one that is having to do the running, passing and making up for the lack of experience in your teammates.
Well they may have noticed his form dipping alongside all that. Maybe, had we looked like we were fixing the issues by bringing in some midfielders quickly they may have given us the benefit, if that is the reason they recalled him. One thing is for sure, there has to be a reason. Maybe they came to a view and are not interested in mitigations. He is their player and they can do that.
Makes sense. If you had a child in a decent school that started failing because a number of teachers went off long term sick to be replaced by inexperienced newbies you'd pull them out if other better performing schools were desperately offering them a place.
Or an investment in a fund that performed poorly over a couple of quarters with better performing funds available you'd switch.
They are looking out for their player/ investment.
So, he had to step up even more to compensate for the less experienced players around him and they think that’s a bad thing ? Looking good when the rest of the team is so experienced they are running rings around the opposition, laying on accurate passes to you, making up for the lack of experience you have and winning games is probably a lot less harder than being the one that is having to do the running, passing and making up for the lack of experience in your teammates.
As stated he could stay in the Chelsea Dev X1 if that were the case. He needs to be playing with better and more to the point more experienced players so he is making the right runs, doing the right things without the ball as well as with it etc etc.
When Allan Simonsen came to us he was on a different wavelength to those he was playing with. At times, in recent weeks, Gallagher has looked the same and that will only cause frustration and not stunt his development. The other irony is that if and when the senior pros are back he might well be the one that is rested!
Chelsea were prolly reading here the last 10 weeks and believed it would turn around because the injured players will be back soon and everything will be roses just like the beginning of the season .... then they suddenly realised it’s not happening is it with 1 win in 15 Charlton are a struggling side .
Sounds like Swansea aren't far off being the Chelsea feeder team like Derby were last season? Perhaps they even instigated this in their discussions with Chelsea?
I imagine the uncertainty over Bowyer also won't have helped.
And the manager not signed up and only one player brought in on loan after two weeks of the January window. This in a team which has won only 1 in 15 and youngsters who clearly are not ready are being drafted in every game. They might feel too much responsibility is being placed on a young player, and Bowyer has inferred in a press conference that he might be over playing him because there are no other options. I would say that it could be a good thing for Conor to have that responsibility, but he is only 19 and it is possible others see it differently. They may have seen Conor's play dipping a bit and that contributed to their decision.
Makes sense. If you had a child in a decent school that started failing because a number of teachers went off long term sick to be replaced by inexperienced newbies you'd pull them out if other better performing schools were desperately offering them a place.
Or an investment in a fund that performed poorly over a couple of quarters with better performing funds available you'd switch.
They are looking out for their player/ investment.
Still can't stand them as a club though.
Good analogies RCT, although unfortunately not about houses. 7/10.
Makes sense. If you had a child in a decent school that started failing because a number of teachers went off long term sick to be replaced by inexperienced newbies you'd pull them out if other better performing schools were desperately offering them a place.
Or an investment in a fund that performed poorly over a couple of quarters with better performing funds available you'd switch.
They are looking out for their player/ investment.
Still can't stand them as a club though.
Can you use a “imagine you were buying a house” analogy to illustrate your point?
Connor was, a joy to watch for us this season and has a bright future, the squad is currently weaker without him, it does show that the reliance on loan players (or in our case over-reliance in recent seasons), has its flaws. Nothing none of us didn't already know but worth re-iterating.
I think people need to calm down on the Gallagher and Chelsea hating.
Without either of their support, we wouldn't even know his name. They have done us a favour.
They are not a charity and we do not live in a communist society
If you were Chelsea and you watched that Derby game , you would move Connor to another team for the following footballing reasons
1. He needs to play with men not boys on his team to develop.
2. CG has been the only player in the last 2 months who has been trying to play triangles and get pass and move going. Because you cant do this on your own, he has gone backwards slightly as trying to to do too much.
3. If JW and JC had stayed fit he wouldn't be going back. Chelsea need him to learn and , with all due respect, he isn't learning from playing with Deji.
4. If he goes West Brom, Chelsea will get 1-2M just for the loan as it seals them promotion. If he goes Swansea then he gets to play with England youth coach as his manager and Rhian Brewster to thread through balls to.
Whilst I loved watching this kwolity baller play, its not the end of the world. JC and JW coming back will more than compensate. JW fit runs rings round any attacking midfielder, he runs rings around a 19 year old CG.
We need another body in midfield to cover JC but either JW or Otzumer can fill the CG role, which is a creative midfielder.
Good luck Connor, u were mint for us
I think you're spot on with this. Chelsea loaned Gallagher in the expectation that he would play every week and play alongside senior pros who will help him develop his game. With Charlton's midfield decimated by injury Gallagher has been playing alongside the likes of Doughty, Dempsey, Morgan and Vennings. No disrespect to those players, Doughty in particular looks an excellent prospect, but there is no denying they are boys that have had to be thrown in to the team before they are truly ready. Is that what Chelsea signed up for? They'd want Gallagher playing with experienced players like Pratley, and internationals like Williams and Cullen. That hasn't been the case recently. Not winning for 12 weeks in a row is a valuable gut check that Gallagher won't get playing in the Chelsea youth team, but perhaps Chelsea have seen enough.
There's absolutely no doubt that Gallagher has improved by playing at Charlton and teams like Chelsea, West Ham and Arsenal are now very well aware of what a spell at Charlton can do for their players. I think we should be taking the long view on this. Our chances of getting more and better loans from Premier League clubs will have improved considering how well the likes of Bielik, Cullen and Gallagher have done. With a less tight-fisted ownership prepared to make a bigger contribution to loan costs we should be be able to get more top young players in the next few years.
I'm sad to see Gallagher go this early but it's not like Charlton never lost its best players before. I wish him all the very best. He's a quality player and from his kind words on Charlton, clearly a quality young man too.
Yes because I am fairly certain that when we signed him on loan we did not have Williams, Cullen, Field, Leko, Greene, Kayal or Oztumer in the squad.
so we had Pratley, Aneke and the kids. Unless Chelsea are pulling him because he has not had enough game time with Aneke?
I don't know the timescales of signings in the summer but Charlton must have convinced Chelsea of the squad they expected to have and the worth of Gallagher playing at Charlton, particularly with the reportedly low contribution Charlton were making to Gallagher's wages. It appears that having seen who has been in the teams in recent weeks Chelsea have reconsidered.
The gaping great hole in your argument is that the Chelsea Loan Technical Director or whatever title goes with his 200k a year salary must also be aware that those senior players which were signed and so met with his approval early on, are now all coming back, and furthermore that the new ownership are promising further strengthening. How would the Loan Technical Director not know all this if he has been visiting Sparrows Lane? And even if he hasn't, why didn't he just discuss his concerns with Bowyer? Clearly he did not do that.
The gaping hole in your argument is “why the fuck should he?”.
He’s not our player and never was. They don’t have to justify themselves to Charlton, Bowyer or you. They call the shots. That’s just how it is.
You think I don't understand that? Really?
Football is a business, and the individual businesses, and the individuals who work in that business, depend on each other as well as competing with each other. One day, perhaps quite soon, Abramovic will sell, probably to some Yank consortium, and the slow decline similar to that at Old Trafford will probably set in. In football what goes around comes around a bit quicker than in many industries. But it's the same as in any business. You can get away with behaving like a classless ****, but generally in the long term showing a bit of class brings better outcomes.
Connor was, a joy to watch for us this season and has a bright future, the squad is currently weaker without him, it does show that the reliance on loan players (or in our case over-reliance in recent seasons), has its flaws. Nothing none of us didn't already know but worth re-iterating.
Agreed - this is another legacy left to us by Roland
Makes sense. If you had a child in a decent school that started failing because a number of teachers went off long term sick to be replaced by inexperienced newbies you'd pull them out if other better performing schools were desperately offering them a place.
Or an investment in a fund that performed poorly over a couple of quarters with better performing funds available you'd switch.
They are looking out for their player/ investment.
Still can't stand them as a club though.
that would work if LB and his team were off sick and replaced by Dean Chandler and Bradley Allen but they weren't.
In your analogy you're pulling your kid out of school because the kid he copies off in maths is off school.
Don't get the point from that Twitter account. If Conor was playing in the Chelsea U23s then he'd playing against U23s. As it was, he was playing tough championship sides.
Sounds like Swansea aren't far off being the Chelsea feeder team like Derby were last season? Perhaps they even instigated this in their discussions with Chelsea?
I imagine the uncertainty over Bowyer also won't have helped.
I see it as that too. The fact that Swansea kicked the living day lights out of him when we played them shows that Cooper saw him as a threat and a good player. Swansea have a close relationship with Chelsea so asked for a favour, Chelsea suggested it to Conor and encouraged the move, Conor agreed, Swansea get their man.
Imagine spending your free time making up stuff about Chelsea's youth team.
We live amongst some strange creatures.
Personally don't see much wrong with what that account has written and i expect it's pretty close to the truth. It has 163k followers, it's not some kid making up shit.
On another note, seems like Swansea appointing Cooper was a masterstroke. Their form has improved, they've got Brewster and Guehi on loan and now look favourites to get Gallagher too.
Comments
Agree 100%. At the moment from the outside we are a club in turmoil/transition ( delete as appropriate ). I only wonder why they waited up until the last minute before they recalled him? At the moment we still dont have any of our senior players who were injured starting matches and no new experienced players through the door . There are lots of irons in the fire but nothing has landed as yet. Bows still hasnt agreed a contract with MS. I am sure that other clubs would have been talking to Chelsea about Gallagher before the window opened so i am surprised it has taken them this long to recall him. Perhaps they were waiting to see if things improved at Charlton before moving him on ?
Connor was learning to play first team football, where points are at stake and the likes of Jason Pearce are putting everything on the line to pay his mortgage. It has nothing to do with the standard of our youth players versus the Chelsea U23’s, you sanctimonious tit.
Great player. Chelsea a shitstain on football.
We move onwards and upwards.
Makes sense. If you had a child in a decent school that started failing because a number of teachers went off long term sick to be replaced by inexperienced newbies you'd pull them out if other better performing schools were desperately offering them a place.
Or an investment in a fund that performed poorly over a couple of quarters with better performing funds available you'd switch.
They are looking out for their player/ investment.
Still can't stand them as a club though.
When Allan Simonsen came to us he was on a different wavelength to those he was playing with. At times, in recent weeks, Gallagher has looked the same and that will only cause frustration and not stunt his development. The other irony is that if and when the senior pros are back he might well be the one that is rested!
then they suddenly realised it’s not happening is it with 1 win in 15 Charlton are a struggling side .
I imagine the uncertainty over Bowyer also won't have helped.
Football is a business, and the individual businesses, and the individuals who work in that business, depend on each other as well as competing with each other. One day, perhaps quite soon, Abramovic will sell, probably to some Yank consortium, and the slow decline similar to that at Old Trafford will probably set in. In football what goes around comes around a bit quicker than in many industries. But it's the same as in any business. You can get away with behaving like a classless ****, but generally in the long term showing a bit of class brings better outcomes.
In your analogy you're pulling your kid out of school because the kid he copies off in maths is off school.
We live amongst some strange creatures.
On another note, seems like Swansea appointing Cooper was a masterstroke. Their form has improved, they've got Brewster and Guehi on loan and now look favourites to get Gallagher too.