Matt Law has been on the London is Blue Podcast today giving an update on Chelsea’s transfer situation, as the Blues continue their search for a striker.
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“Chelsea & Atletico have been speaking all summer. Samu Omorodion is Chelsea’s top centre forward target. A deal may happen if Chelsea can bring down Atletico’s price for Samu & Gallagher goes to Atletico in a separate deal.”
“Chelsea really like this lad [Samu Omorodion], he ticks a lot of boxes for them. If there could be a deal done there, with [Conor] Gallagher going to the other way, then it’s possible.”
These sort of unofficial swaps, where the terms of both deals are agreed at the same time but the operations are executed separately, are becoming more common this summer.
The swap situation does have some merit, there’s no denying it. It solves the issue that Atletico Madrid have that they simply can’t afford the sort of money we would want for Gallagher (rumoured to be around £50m). But it creates a new issue for them in that they’re losing Memphis Depay and Alvaro Morata this summer, and getting very little back for them.
Samu has been bumped up the pecking order, and letting him go just means they put themselves in a position where they need to buy a new striker.
If Chelsea like the forward as much as Law says, they would probably be happy to swap him on their end – another bonus is it means preventing him from joining a rival, with all the bad blood that would bring.
But as it stands, these swaps are always hard to pull off, and this one feels too high value and too complex to succeed… as it stands.