Chelsea may regret selling “priceless” star who’s worth way more than Lavia

Enzo Maresca was flying high in his first few months at Chelsea, leading them to second in the Premier League, finishing top of the UEFA Conference League group phase and implementing a clear style of play for all to see.

However, in the past few months, things have taken a turn for the worst, dropping to sixth place in the league, being knocked out of both the EFL Cup and FA Cup, and having a poor January transfer window where plenty of issues were not addressed by Todd Boehly and co.

Chelsea have had some huge issues since their injury troubles began to arise, leading to a run of only three wins in their last ten games, one of which coming against Morecambe in the FA Cup.

Chelsea’s injury issues

The first big injury blow this season was the loss of Wesley Fofana, who had settled into a solid defensive unit alongside Levi Colwill, the two complimenting each other brilliantly and beginning to provide the Blues with a stability they hadn’t had previously.

Fofana’s hamstring injury was the first to really affect the first-team squad, as he had started 12 of the first 13 Premier League games. Since then, Roméo Lavia and Reece James have both struggled for fitness, whilst James is currently available, the two have been suffering from reoccurring injuries this season.

In the past few weeks, Nicolas Jackson, Marc Guiu and Noni Madueke have all suffered injuries too, leaving Chelsea with a thin squad despite being able to field two different starting lineups earlier in the season.

Availability is one of the most important things in this modern era of football, and one man Chelsea sold in the summer had that in abundance.

The former Chelsea star who’s worth more than Lavia

Conor Gallagher was sold to Atlético Madrid in the summer transfer window, joining the Spanish giants for around £35.8m.

In his time at Chelsea, the English midfielder made 95 appearances for the club

, scoring ten goals, providing ten assists and totalling 6,061 minutes played.

But more importantly, Gallagher has never been ruled out through injury, which is something Chelsea could use in their current squad.

When comparing Gallagher and Lavia’s underlying metrics this season, you can see Lavia clearly has a bit more quality on the ball, making more progressive passes and completing a higher percentage of his passes.

A pass is considered progressive if the distance between the starting point and the next touch is at least 10 meters closer to the opponent’s goal or any completed pass into the penalty area.

However, Gallagher offers similar defensive qualities with ball recoveries, blocks and can even add goals from midfield, crashing the box and working hard from end to end.

Mauricio Pochettino labelled Gallagher as “priceless” last season, but the 25-year-old, who was sold for £35.8m is now worth €73m (£61m) according to Football Observatory, which is more than the injury-prone Lavia, who is only valued at €25m (£21m).

Due to the injury issues of Lavia this season, Enzo Fernández and Moises Caicedo have experienced an incredibly big workload in midfield, and having a player like Gallagher, in hindsight, who is always available and willing to work hard, could have been very helpful for the squad.

Perhaps, Boehly and co will live to regret that transfer decision, as the battle for a Champions League berth hots up…