Conor Gallagher agrees £33.7m Atletico Madrid move after Diego Simeone talks

Conor Gallagher agrees £33.7m Atletico Madrid move after Diego Simeone talks

Conor Gallagher has agreed to join Atletico Madrid from Chelsea for £33.7 million after Diego Simeone pushed hard to convince the midfielder to move to Spain.

England international Gallagher is poised to sign a five-year deal that could earn him as much as £200,000-a-week once bonuses are taken into consideration.

Gallagher was preparing to fly to Madrid on Monday to finalise the deal, having consulted Kieran Trippier about life at Atletico while on England duty during the Euros.

While the fee is significantly lower than the initial £55 million they banked for Mason Mount, who also had a year remaining on his contract, from Manchester United last summer, Chelsea favoured selling Gallagher overseas.

The west London club accepted a higher offer from Aston Villa in June, but Gallagher turned the move down, while Tottenham Hotspur have not followed up their long-standing interest with a firm offer.

Selling Gallagher to Villa, Spurs, or any other English club, could have piled pressure on Chelsea if the 24-year-old outperformed their midfielders during the forthcoming campaign.

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Chelsea twice offered Gallagher a new two-year contract, with the option of a further 12 months – once after accepting Villa’s offer and again after Atletico’s bid had been accepted.

Gallagher turned down each offer and, on Friday, was called in to Chelsea, cutting short his summer break, to be told that he risked being left out of the first-team squad if he stayed and did not sign a new contract.

That prompted a hectic weekend of talks, with verbal agreement between Gallagher and Atletico being found in the early hours of Monday morning.

Simeone has told Gallagher that he sees him as a key component of what has turned into a summer rebuild and believes the Chelsea academy graduate will fit perfectly into his system and style of play.

Gallagher played virtually every game under Simeone’s Argentine compatriot, Mauricio Pochettino, at Chelsea last season and captained the team for the majority of the season.

But Pochettino’s exit and the appointment of Enzo Maresca as head coach resulted in Chelsea believing that Gallagher would be more of a squad player, if he had signed a new deal, under the Italian.

Once he formally completes his move to Atletico, Gallagher will be the fifth first-team academy graduate to be sold by Chelsea’s Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly owners, with Trevoh Chalobah and Armando Broja also set to depart this summer.

Gallagher follows Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Ian Maatsen and Lewis Hall out of Stamford Bridge. Reece James and Levi Colwill are two academy graduates who have signed new long-term Chelsea contracts under the current owners.

Conor Gallagher agrees £33.7m Atletico Madrid move after Diego Simeone talks