Conor Gallagher’s Atletico move could see Chelsea come in for Matt O’Riley

Matt O’Riley could be the subject of another Premier League bid as Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher is on the brink of a move.

It was reported yesterday that the Blues would be weighing up a move for the Celtic star should Gallagher leave, and it seems all but confirmed that he will.

The England international was recently banished from the Blues’ first team and has now verbally agreed terms with Atletico. According to Fabrizio Romano, Gallagher will become La Liga’s record fee for this summer window with a deal worth €40m.

This doesn’t bode well for Celtic, as it means Chelsea will have more than enough money in the bank to meet their valuation of O’Riley. The Scottish Champions certainly aren’t going to sell for anything less, so the Premier League outfit will certainly have to cough up the cash if they want to secure the Dane’s services.

Brendan Rodgers said after flag day: “There’s been offers for him [O’Riley] but nowhere near the valuation of the player himself.

“He’s just continuing to work every day, and like I said, he understands where it’s at. But if you see his performance level all the way through pre-season and here today, he’s very focused on helping the team, very focused on improving as a player, and he knows he’s in a great place to do that.

“Until that changes then we will continue to work with Matt to help improve his game.”

Rodgers is staying firm on the asking price of at least £25m and supporters will be happy to see that, but would obviously rather retain the Great Dane for one more season. O’Riley was a standout performer for the Celts last season and has already shown his class in the new campaign. The midfielder leaving would be a massive loss so no wonder the Celtic manager is trying to hold on to him for as long as he can.

Rodgers added: “I would love for one, Matt to be here. But also two, to have more tools to give it a real go at the Champions League.”

With the new format, Celtic seem confident that they may have a chance at progressing to the next phase of the top European competition for the first time since 2012/13.

“It’s one of our big targets this season,” Rodgers went on. “We want to see if we can get into those play-off phases and for that obviously with so many games, so many challenges in this season for us, we want to improve the squad. So, for Matt and other players, absolutely that’s our challenge over these next three and a half weeks to hopefully get tooled up to have the best opportunity we can.”