Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has confirmed Conor Gallagher will not play for Chelsea this weekend as they face Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.
Gallagher is training away from the main squad at Cobham following his return from Spain after his move to Atletico Madrid stalled.
Atletico had a bid in the region of €42million (£36m) accepted for Gallagher last month with the England international also agreeing personal terms and undergoing a medical after flying to the Spanish capital last week.
While a move to Atletico could still go through, the midfielder has now returned to the UK at Chelsea’s request.
“Conor is back and is training in this moment a little bit apart,” Maresca said previewing Sunday’s game. “He is doing some medical tests and training and he won’t be involved for this game also because you know better than me in this moment he is trying to find a solution with club. So we will see what happens.”
Maresca, who joined Chelsea after guiding Leicester City to Premier League promotion, was also asked how difficult it is having a situation like Gallagher’s unfold.
“Unfortunately these kinds of things happen every summer sometimes at Chelsea, sometimes at Liverpool, (Manchester) City, Arsenal, Bournemouth, Newcastle,” he said. “All the clubs during the summer they have some problems unfortunately because players want to leave or perhaps they want a player to leave. So always this can happen that there’s some kinds of problems.
”But at the end every time (they) finish with all of them happy so hopefully for Conor in this moment his situation is going to finish where the player, the club, the manager all of them are going to be happy.“
(Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
Reece James will miss Sunday’s match through suspension. James also suffered a hamstring injury in pre-season, and Maresca confirmed the Chelsea captain is his only current injury concern.
”We have just one injury that is Reece James the rest they are all fit and all of them are going to be available,“ he said.
With Chelsea yet to sign a striker this summer, Maresca was asked about the club’s interest in Napoli forward Victor Osimhen and Atletico Madrid’s Joao Felix, who was loaned to the club during the 2022-23 season.
”The only thing I can say – and I always have to say the same – they are not our players,“ the Italian said. ”So it is not correct to talk about a Napoli player or about an Atletico Madrid player.
“In this moment the club knows exactly what I think in terms of what we need in case we do something. And hopefully before we finish the transfer window we can bring some player.”
Chelsea have a squad of 42 first-team players and there are a number of players training away from the main group, including Gallagher.
Asked whether he finds this difficult Maresca said: “At the moment it’s not difficult, as I said also because if I start to think that I have 43 players (42 following Diego Moreira’s departure to Strasbourg), probably it is not a good thing.
”I just finished the session now and I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s session. It is the only thing I like to do, I like to control. Because then if you start to think about 43 players, the manager has no time. This kind of thing, I think it’s not worth it.“
When it was put to Maresca that Chelsea will need to loan or sell a number of players in order to trim down the squad ahead of the new season he said he is not the man for the job.
”I’m not the guy in charge to find solutions for a lot of players, otherwise they have to pay me double,“ he laughed.
(Clive Rose/Getty Images)
