£34m player claims he was desperate to leave Chelsea for new club in the summer

Add as preferred source on Google

Several players left Chelsea over the summer for a fresh start, including the likes of Conor Gallagher, Romelu Lukaku and Ian Maatsen.

Conor Gallagher joined Atletico Madrid, while Romelu Lukaku finally got his permanent Chelsea exit by signing for Napoli.

As for Ian Maatsen, he remained in England after moving to Chelsea’s Premier League rivals Aston Villa.

One of those players has now been speaking about his Stamford Bridge exit.

• READ MORE: £34m player Chelsea fans didn’t want to sell now named in his new league’s Team of the Week

Conor Gallagher really wanted to join Atletico Madrid

Atletico signed Gallagher from Chelsea in a £34m transfer, and the midfielder has revealed that he was desperate for the Spanish club to get the deal done after seeing it stall at one stage.

Speaking to AS, the 24-year-old said: “It was stressful. I was in Madrid, ready to sign and become a new Atletico player. All I wanted was for it to be closed and for me to be able to start training and be part of the team. All big transfers can get complicated and that’s what happened with mine.

“But I always had the confidence that it would go ahead, because I knew how much Atletico wanted me to be here and how much I wanted to end up as a red-and-white. I always had the confidence that it would be resolved. Luckily it ended up happening and everything was perfect.”

Gallagher is being supported by the Atletico fans right now, with the Englishman already feeling appreciated in Madrid.

Why was Conor Gallagher so keen to join Atletico Madrid?

At Chelsea, Gallagher probably saw his role in the team reducing following the departure of Mauricio Pochettino, who played him 50 times last season.

As well as that, before his eventual move to Atletico, it was constantly reported that Chelsea were happy to offload him so that they could make some pure profit and avoid breaking PSR rules. That would not have made Gallagher feel wanted either.

Atletico also have a lot of appeal. They are one of the top teams in Spain, regular competitors in the Champions League and have an excellent manager in charge in Diego Simeone.

In the end, it was probably quite an easy decision for Gallagher to make. His departure has left Enzo Maresca with Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Romeo Lavia and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as his main midfield options.

Renato Veiga can play in the middle as well and had to do just that last weekend after Fernandez was ruled out of the Bournemouth match, which Chelsea went on to win 1-0 after a late goal from Christopher Nkunku, through illness.