Chelsea transfer news: The Blues are considering selling Conor Gallagher and Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia look set to join.
Very little of Conor Gallagher's game is about aesthetics. When he walks off a pitch at half-time, full-time, as a substitute or following a red card inside half an hour, he always looks like he's run more than others and taken a dip in a swimming pool at the same time.
Perhaps this season more than ever, with his longer locks of blonde hair tied up behind him as he sprints in search of the football, the ragged look is heightened. Gallagher is a player that does things to do them, not to appear good at doing them. Substance over style.
His goals are rarely splendid, though he has shown the ability to pile a ball into the top corner as well as many, but rather crashing and bundled. His tackles don't look effortless or clean; they're dogged and rough. A player that doesn't get things easily, has never done and seemingly won't for the foreseeable; wears this proudly on his chest and so he should.
Gallagher is a Chelsea fan from a family of Chelsea fans. He's an academy graduate from a club that generates more from the sales of their young than any in the country. He's a jagged edge at a time of smooth corners; a straight-line footballer in an era of curves.
They might value him as a £50million ($64million) player that they aren't too intent on using but here he is again, the annoying kid you can't get rid of, back for more like a never-tiring dog chasing a tennis ball. How good is that?
After a season of horror and a summer of reality, Gallagher wears the colours a little brighter than most. In a rebuild focused on energy and connection, few have this as much as or in the way that Gallagher does.
No matter what is said about him in the press, how much social media fans will slam him for a lack of control or ball progression, Gallagher turns up and runs more than anyone else - or at least gives off the effect that he does. Whilst Chelsea spent the last eight months signing younger, continental and more luxurious options around him, selling off almost everyone else, he remains.
In fact, there are no senior midfielders at the club that haven't been signed in the past 12 months, other than Gallagher. Chelsea cannot and perhaps subconsciously will not sell him. Maybe the reason he gives the view of a player working harder than others is because he is.
Very few players resist a press as high and relentless as Liverpool's like Gallagher did with the mental fortitude on display. It was a messy first 30 minutes for him, wildly out of his comfort zone and out of position. This is another chance for him to play for Chelsea though and Gallagher went on to free up Fernandez, take the swarming red shirts away from the gem next to him.
It was the 23-year-old who helped pen Jurgen Klopp's side deep into their half for much of a dominant 35 minutes in the second half. He won the ball back more times than anyone on the pitch, he rattled through and around Liverpool like a nuisance. If that's his role then so be it, because very few have an ego that would let them do the dirty work in such a way.
Gallagher shook off the background noise that actually these two teams were competing in the shadow of signing younger, more expensive players that could effectively replace him. He played with the desire of someone who felt these were his last seconds at his home. What a way to endear yourself if it was.
They are part of a six-man group still up for sale at this stage. Callum Hudson Odoi, Hakim Ziyech and Romelu Lukaku haven't even got shirt numbers for the campaign, they're all but out. Gallagher and his Cobham pals, however, are up against the very fact that they look better on the accounts when sold.
They can tackle without slipping and sliding, they can pass under pressure without looking as scared as Gallagher but what they cannot do is the real value in having him stay. Gallagher is not and was never a deeper ball-player, Thomas Tuchel worked that out last year.
He rarely starts in a role that actually fits his best attributes but doesn't sulk. He isn't the first name on many teamsheets but is involved in all. His terrier-like attitude is to be admired as he once more digs in to compete against those more glamorous and talented than him.
In a world of academy players exiting for more minutes, for pastures new and higher wages, Gallagher is content to fight and fight a bit harder to stay.
Because he can be relied upon he is valuable, that is for sure. Chelsea cannot sell this skill or turn it into cash to send straight into Southampton's pocket though, that might just help everyone reach the right conclusion. You cannot replace Gallagher with a more jazzy footballer because that alone ignores his very worth and offering.
His attributes are his and his alone, they don't quantify perfectly but they absolutely work. So as he walks off down the tunnel without hanging around too long at Stamford Bridge, he does it with more connection and feeling to the club than most. That doesn't mean goals, assists and tackles but it sure means enough.