Summer 2024 Transfer Window - hopes, speculation, rumours etc.

[eye digress]

Aston Villa open talks to set up deal for Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher

Jacob Steinberg The Guardian

Very reliable on all matters Chelsea, I’ve noticed. Sounds like Chelsea are trying to organise an auction, though.

As for Gallagher, he’s one of those annoying opposition players you like to hate. But you’d love him if he were on your team.

He’s been excellent every time I’ve seen him this year in particular, and he seemed to get better the longer the season went on. Plus, his value is only going to increase, so would be smart business short and medium term.

[VillaTim]

Most people if they are honest with themselves have been slating Gallagher for years. Powder puff. He's absolutely nothing like McGinn , not fit to clean his boots. Very very poor comparison. Of course the modern fan with some tenuous links of him joining Villa gets a bit excitable. Crack on.

[Clark W Griswold]

I haven’t paid much attention to Gallagher until quite recently but from what I’ve seen of him quite recently he’s been very good and I would be happy with him coming in. Especially if it’s true that Doug has decided he wants a move, a much more appropriate replacement than some of the other suggestions.

[nigel]

This made me laugh on Twitter:

We have decided to replace Douglas Luiz with three players, to cover all of his attributes

- Ross Barkley for his passing ability

- Conor Gallagher for his shooting ability

- Weston McKennie as a constant reminder of how he played for the last three months of the season

Taken from an article in a post above

‘ It wasn’t so long ago that McKennie was coming back from his turbulent six-month spell at Leeds United — one in which the team went through three different managers and then got relegated to the Championship’

Not exactly a stable platform for any player especially one who’s new to the place

[coreyfeldman]

Most people if they are honest with themselves have been slating Gallagher for years. Powder puff. He's absolutely nothing like McGinn , not fit to clean his boots. Very very poor comparison. Of course the modern fan with some tenuous links of him joining Villa gets a bit excitable. Crack on.

13 goal contributions in a team that finished 6th who were top or 4 on form second half of the season. His main criticism previously was his lack of involvement and him just running around but that's clearly not the case. I think he is similar to mcginn in a fair few ways actually, energy wise and sets the tone in the midfield for chelsea.

The poor comparison is yours with cantwell cos he has same hair

[PaulWinch again]

The reference to Duran being part of a swap deal, can someone who understands PSR explain that? Because losing a player 18 months are signing them for a reasonable fee in a swap deal can’t be good can it? Or can it?!

[Smithy]

Gallagher has been shite for years , ok he had a good few weeks under Poch but £50m!! Nah . Cantwell MkII for sure .

I think you have just lost the argument if you think Gallagher has only been good for a few weeks.

He's been good since his loan at Palace three years ago, and really good for the last year in a frankly bonkers Chelsea set-up.  I think he's an excellent prospect, who would bring a huge amount of energy to our side.  But as others have said, if he and Barkley are genuinely targets, then there is no way we're not losing someone from the middle of the park.  There is no way our midfield can keep Kamara, Luiz, McGinn, Tielemens, JJ, Rogers, Barkley and Gallagher happy - even with rotation, some of them would be very much on the periphery.

[PaulWinch again]

“Cantwell mkii” is just very obvious trolling (and evidence of a lack of knowledge too).

[edgysatsuma89]

“Cantwell mkii” is just very obvious trolling (and evidence of a lack of knowledge too).

Yep, piss poor attempt.

[Clark W Griswold]

The thing is, Dougie was pretty average until he suddenly wasn’t. Young players develop over time and all of a sudden you get the finished article, I’d think Gallagher had his breakout season last season and from what I saw he’s certainly not ‘powder puff’.

[eye digress]

The reference to Duran being part of a swap deal, can someone who understands PSR explain that? Because losing a player 18 months are signing them for a reasonable fee in a swap deal can’t be good can it? Or can it?!

I would presume each player would have a fair market value assigned as part of the deal, and would be treated as a separate transaction: (i) Duran out, profit (loss) on sale banked; (ii) Gallagher in, assigned value amortised over 4 (say) years.

So in year one, we’d be winners in that we would bank all of the (assumed) profit on Duran but take just a quarter of Gallagher’s “cost” to income.

Obvs, there are also salaries to consider, with Gallagher’s likely to be much higher than Duran’s.

[Smithy]

The reference to Duran being part of a swap deal, can someone who understands PSR explain that? Because losing a player 18 months are signing them for a reasonable fee in a swap deal can’t be good can it? Or can it?!

I think for swaps, we would have to place a notional value on him for FFP purposes.  The difference between the players being swapped is the bit that matters from a cash perspective, but as long as the difference is the same, the actual values I think can vary quite a bit.

For example, we could value Duran at £40m, and they value Gallagher at £60m, meaning it's a £20m cash deal, but £40m goes on our FFP books towards profits immediately, and £60m will be amortised over the length of Gallagher's contract. 

We could equally value Duran at £20m and Gallagher at £40m respectively, or £60m and £80m.  Each of these would affect FFP differently.  I'm sure there are rules against it, but hypothetically, we could value Duran at £100m, and Gallagher at £120m, and it would solve both our and Chelsea's FFP short-term issues immediately, as we'd both be making a huge FFP profit immediately, but then subsequently paying a huge fee over a number of years.  There is no way that would be allowed, it's cheating, though I don't know specifically which rules it breaks - I just mention it to illustrate how "swaps" can be complicated from a FFP perspective.

[PaulWinch again]

To be honest Chelsea clearly have a problem with Gallagher in that they very obviously want him gone to help with PSR, this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to flog him. He’s clearly not desperate to go, but for the reason above they’re not offering favourable (or any) terms on a new contract. I think he’s a good player, and would flourish under Unai - but we should be playing hardball here. The clock is really running in terms of their ability to sell, and I assume this story coming out from sources close to Chelsea is an attempt to drum up more interest.

[PaulWinch again]

Thanks for the clarification in respect of FFP/PSR, sounds like a complete fudge.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

The reference to Duran being part of a swap deal, can someone who understands PSR explain that? Because losing a player 18 months are signing them for a reasonable fee in a swap deal can’t be good can it? Or can it?!

Villa and Chelsea will probably treat it like 2 purchases and 2 sales, the purchase and salary costs can each spread over 5 years (or whatever the contract period is); whilst the sale proceeds would count as revenue in the current accounting year.

So let's say Gallagher's cost is £50m for a 5 year contract (allowing for wages, fees etc); and Duran's sale is £40m; it would mean:

£40m of profit for this year
£10m of loss for this year

= £30m profit to add to this year, which would presumably be enough to keep us on the right side of PSR.

Chelsea would do the same their end, and add it to the profits they made from "selling" their hotels; which could mean them being fine with PSR, or limit any damage they're already going to be hit for.

EDIT: Didn't see Smithy's post.