What is Conor Gallagher?
https://theathletic.com/2854398/2021/10/01/what-is-conor-gallagher/
On early showings, Crystal Palace might bemoan their luck that they passed up the opportunity to sign Conor Gallagher last season. At the same time, though, his seamless integration into Patrick Vieira’s system this term has caught the eye, in a way that would have been unlikely under Roy Hodgson.
Instead they opted for the ineffective Michy Batshuayi on deadline day last summer, which in hindsight appears an obvious mistake. Gallagher has lit up the Premier League so far this term and has been directly involved in five of Palace’s six goals. On current form at least, he appears to be the midfielder they have needed for a long time.
In the 1-1 draw with Brighton on Monday night, he buzzed around the pitch, chasing every loose ball, every pass back to Robert Sanchez, every possible moment where he might snatch possession deep into opposition territory.
It was his tenacity and endeavour that won the penalty from which Palace opened the scoring. A quick burst into the area and he was brought down by Leandro Trossard. The sudden acceleration after spotting an opening has become a crucial aspect of his game and something that will undoubtedly win his team more free kicks and penalties in the future.
Receiving the ball from Jordan Ayew, Gallager stopped it with his studs and weighed up his options…
Ayew provided a passing option down the line and Gallagher shaped to do exactly that. This confused Brighton defender Marc Cucurella, who shifted his body weight to block a pass on his outside…
It gave Gallagher the advantage and he showed that burst of pace to dart away from Cucurella and drive towards goal…
He got the wrong side of Cucurella and into the Brighton box, which meant Trossard was called into urgent action…
The forward’s challenge was mistimed and clumsy and Gallagher was able to put his body between Trossard and the ball, drawing a foul to win the penalty…
There were also several defensive blocks, racing to close down Adam Lallana twice as he took aim from the edge of the box.
The way the 21-year-old creates space and moves into it ready to receive the ball is impressive. On his Palace debut against Brentford last month, there were clear signs of how integral he was about to become in their more positive, attacking set-up under Vieira. Even the Brentford manager, Thomas Frank, conceded that he changed things around at half-time in part to deal with the threat that Gallagher posed.
He epitomises what this team is about under Vieira — his energy, intensity, determination and dynamism to date has enabled him to slot in perfectly. So far, their passes per defensive action (PPDA) — the number of passes they allow the opposition before attempting a defensive action — has dropped from 16.7 last season to 14.2 this season. That’s indicative of Palace pressing more aggressively, and being more active when out of possession, all of which is encapsulated by Gallagher’s involvement.
Palace’s style of play has completely shifted this season, something welcomed by many after the stability under Hodgson had led to them becoming stale. They are now building from the back more through Joachim Andersen and Marc Guehi, both of whom are comfortable on the ball.
To make the most of this though, they need attacking options up front. To press the ball more aggressively, they need some energy in midfield. Gallagher offers both of those things.
They’ve also become far less direct. Their direct speed — how quickly in metres per second they advance upfield — has dropped from 1.64 to 1.15 from last season to this season. For context, that’s the third fastest to the second slowest in the division.
After winning the Palace player of the month award for August with 90 per cent of the votes (he would later with the September award, too), the midfielder spoke of how Vieira has allowed him more freedom. “He’s given me the licence to run forward as much as I can and make the box to score goals,” he said. “That’s what I want to be doing. I’ve got the legs to run up and down the pitch and that’s what I want to be doing.”
He has become far more attacking compared to last season, getting into the box more, but on the ball far less in midfield and actually more out wide on the right. This demonstrates the more offensive nature of his role, and how Vieira is looking to use the wide areas to build play and progress with his No 8s.
It clearly had the desired effect. While pigeonholing his style is difficult, there are some similarities with players from Palace’s midfield in the past. There are shades of Yohan Cabaye in his performances, the same tenacity and technical ability, even if they are significantly different players in style. James McArthur’s work rate has been enviable for many years, but Gallagher has matched him in this area.
He has racked up an expected goals (xG) tally of 2.6 from his chances through the first six games. In the last three seasons, the previous highest xG from a Palace midfielder was McArthur in 2018-19 with 0.97. Evidently, this is a notable departure from the norm, down to both the tactical changes made by Vieira and as a result of Gallagher’s freedom and willingness to get into the box from midfield.
His xG per 90 of 0.52 is the 11th highest in the league, and better than the likes of Romelu Lukaku (0.51 per 90) and Gabriel Jesus (0.36). The next Palace player on the list is Ayew in 73rd place, with 0.16 xG per 90.
It will be interesting to see if Gallagher can keep up his current rate of chance-getting. His xG per shot — the average xG of a given chance that he has — of 0.24 is the highest in the league of players with 10 or more shots. In the last five seasons, only Dan Gosling (0.22 xG per shot, largely as a result of chances fashioned from late runs into the box) and Leander Dendoncker (0.21 xG per shots, mainly from aerial chances for Wolves) have finished a season averaging 0.2 xG per shot or more, indicating the difficulty for midfielders to consistently get such high-quality chances.
It’s still early in the season, but his attacking metrics when compared to other central midfielders in 2021-22 are some of the best in the league. So far, no midfielder has offered a bigger goal threat, and only a handful have created create more, got on the ball in the box more and won more fouls. He has eased the creative burden on Wilfried Zaha but will need his team-mates to avoid all the pressure resting on his shoulders.
Again, this was further shown by his two goals at West Ham United, the chance he spurned by hitting the woodwork on his debut against Brentford and by the penalty he won against Brighton — all of which were achieved by picking up the ball and driving into the box.
Those goals against West Ham exemplified his technical ability and knack for positioning himself in the right place at the right time.
If the first goal, where he took the ball down on his chest before squeezing in from a tight angle, had an element of luck, then chopping back on himself to twist Craig Dawson and smashing in a second was entirely a reflection of skill.
He has adapted his game across his loan clubs, demonstrating his potential as an all-round midfielder. At Charlton, he was excellent in the box-to-box role, with six goals and four assists in 26 Championship appearances.
With Swansea in the second half of the campaign, he was more advanced, operating as a No 8, and although his goals dried up his input was impressive, with six assists from 19 games. “They have more of the ball than Charlton did, and he (manager Steve Cooper) gave me a chance to create more chances and I think that’s why I’ve got a number of assists,” Gallagher told WhoScored last year.
Last season at West Bromwich Albion was more understated in a difficult season for the team, but it may have helped bridge that jump between the divisions, paving the way for his blistering start to a second Premier League campaign. “With (then-West Brom boss) Sam Allardyce it was more about the dirty side and doing that well, whereas at Swansea it was about the runs in behind and creating chances,” he told the Chelsea website in July.
Although he has scored or assisted five of Palace’s six goals this season, winning penalties against Tottenham — forcing a handball — and Brighton, it is not just that ability in attack that is impressive. He is excellent at playing his way out of tight spaces when seemingly penned in by the opposition, before pushing forward in possession. His energy is almost unrivalled, too.
Considering Gallagher’s defensive numbers, he stands out with his sheer volume of defensive activity, which ranks him among the busiest players in the league when it comes to disrupting opposition moves through tackling, fouling and losing challenges when adjusted for possession. He also reads play well, blocking off passing lanes and intercepting balls at a high rate.
His nine tackles, fouls or lost challenges per 1,000 opponent touches — a means of adjusting for the number of opportunities that Gallagher would have to defend on a lower possession side like Palace — puts him as the 11th-most active midfielder in the league. In the past five seasons, only Cabaye in 2016-17 and 2017-18 and James McCarthy in 2019-20 have put up better numbers, both of whom provided less of a goal threat.
Trying to pinpoint precisely what type of role Gallagher is best suited to can be difficult given his versatility. In possession, he has a fairly peculiar profile, barely making passes, not tending to pass forward much and turning the ball over a lot. He does get plenty of touches in the attacking third though, indicating how advanced his role is.
That was shown against Brighton when his intervention won the ball from a loose pass out from the back. He is rapid in pouncing on loose balls, and did so here, laying off the ball to Christian Benteke before being taken out by Cucurella…
Ayew fired wide when well-placed but it was Gallagher’s industry that had created the opportunity in the first place, and he was even up on his feet and back supporting the attack by the time Ayew took his shot.
“I like to press high, press aggressively and win the ball back to start counter-attacks,” he explained in an interview with the Palace programme published before the Brighton game.
Despite that tenacity and apparent willingness, Gallagher is relatively weak when it comes to winning his individual duels, ranking 44th out of 52 midfielders, showing perhaps he’s not the best tackler. He’s not that strong in the air either.
Those are the obvious areas for improvement to establish himself as a more complete midfielder, but he is still young and relatively inexperienced. In the role he has for Palace, the passing issue is not particularly problematic, as he is more concerned with probing forwards and laying the ball off. Furthermore, his primary attributes, those attacking metrics, are strong and suited to the way he is currently being played. It ought to suit most teams, too.
Using smarterscout we can look at how Gallagher profiles compared to other players in his position. Smarterscout gives players a series of ratings from zero and 99, a bit like the player ratings in the FIFA video games but powered by real data and advanced analytics. These ratings relate to either how often a player performs a given stylistic action (for example, volume of shots per touch), or how effective they are at it (for example, how well they progress the ball upfield) compared with others playing in their position.
Gallagher’s chart shows just how effective he’s been for Palace this season, and outlines his all-action output. In an attacking sense, he’s getting on the ball in the box a lot compared to other central midfielders, and his volume of shots given his touches is extremely high too. All in, he’s contributing plenty to Palace’s ability to both create shots and progress the ball upfield through his actions.
Off the ball, his scores for defending intensity and defending impact are noteworthy. These algorithms look to measure when he’s the most relevant defender (eg, closest to the ball) when Palace are out of possession, and his impact on the opposition’s ability to either progress the ball upfield or get into high-value positions. His ratings of 83/99 and 86/99 respectively for these measures show he’s both a busy and effective defender; pressing, tackling and blocking in an extremely effective manner.
In possession, Gallagher turns the ball over a lot and doesn’t often look to link play together. There’s something mildly Bruno Fernandes-like in his use of the ball when he has it, often looking to get the ball upfield.
Based on Gallagher’s profile, we can look at the players most stylistically similar to him in the top five European leagues in the past few seasons. Top of the pile is Kevin De Bruyne in 2018-19, who displayed similar tendencies to Gallagher in his 845 minutes as a No 8 while seeing plenty more of the ball. Marcel Sabitzer, formerly of RB Leipzig and now at Bayern Munich, isn’t too far behind him in those rankings either, another energetic midfielder who received in the box plenty and often looked to pass the ball forwards at the first opportunity.
It is still early, and Gallagher has only played five games. To maintain this level of performance across the entire season will be almost impossible, and surely would lead to Chelsea making him a mainstay of their own team next year.
Even if the levels do drop off, the bar has been set so high in these early stages that anyone observing cannot help but have been mightily impressed.
Already the talk is that he could be Palace’s best-ever loanee, surpassing the impact of Ashley Cole in 1999-2000 and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in 2017-18. It is not difficult to see why.
Out of everything, the most significant impact he has had could be getting the crowd to their feet again. They cheer every chase for a loose ball, every closing down of a defender and every escape from a tight spot to keep possession. His energy transfers into the stands, and that can be an overlooked attribute.
Although there is plenty of competition in England’s midfield, a call-up might not be a million miles away, and it’s something Vieira believes will likely come in due course, but Gallagher must first show he can maintain the high standards.
“This is the biggest problem in our world, when we have one or two performances, we always think that he deserves a national call and I still believe that he needs to be more consistent in his performance,” Vieira said before Palace’s defeat by Liverpool a fortnight ago.
“He has abilities but I believe it is too early for the call.
“He still has to improve but all the credit to Chelsea because he’s not just a really good footballer, he’s a good human being. His time will come.
He needs to perform well week in week out with us, with the under-21s and that will allow him to go to the national team”
With Gareth Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland at Selhurst on Monday night to watch the 1-1 draw with Brighton and Gallagher’s fine performances to date, it can’t be far away. His parent club will be watching closely, too.
