Sporting directors give strange reason for Conor Gallagher sale in exclusive interview

At last, what we’ve all been waiting for – a full interview with Chelsea sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart.

It’s Matt Law from the Daily Telegraph who has got it, and it’s full of interesting information on a number of subjects. Perhaps the most consistent through line in the whole thing is about PSR. The pair of them deny that the long contracts and the sale of academy players were related to trying to stay within the league’s spending rules.

Of course, there were no mentions of the hotel sales or anything like that.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the pair’s time at the club has been this summer’s sale of Conor Gallagher following an exceptional season under Mauricio Pochettino. The assumption was that we desperately needed to sell an academy produced player for “pure profit” in order to balance the books.

But that’s apparently not the case:

“Every decision has been a performance-based decision, which people have opinions on because that’s football. And, absolutely, with homegrown players it’s always more emotional.”

PSR mystery only deepens

So Gallagher was sold for “performance-based” reasons? That doesn’t really add up, given that going on “performance” he was one of the best players in the team last season.

Selling players for PSR reasons is painful and really a betrayal of what football should be about – but at least the logic behind it is clear. It’s almost more confusing to tell fans that PSR wasn’t the reason some of the academy favourites have been bundled out of the back door in the last couple of years.

““The reality is that if it was that, there are other players and more players who we could have sold as well. Like Paul said, there’s been interest in other players that we’ve turned down,” Stewart claimed.

Hmm.