Chelsea clear a path for possible transfer move over Celtic star as Fabrizio Romano makes €40m Blues claim

Chelsea look to be making room in their midfield room amid reports they are keen on Celtic star Matt O’Riley.

The Danish international dazzled again on Sunday as the Hoops kicked off their Premiership title defence with a 4-0 rout of Kilmarnock. O’Riley has had interest from Atalanta, Southampton and there have been passing mentions of other clubs in Europe.

Chelsea are the latest link, and they are about to sell midfielder Conor Gallagher to Atletico Madrid, according to Fabrizio Romano. That would likely rule the La Liga side out the race for O’Riley, having had bids rejected in January, but it would free up a space in midfield for Chelsea and funds to make a move for the Celtic star.

Romano said on X: “ Conor Gallagher has verbally agreed terms and said YES to join Atlético Madrid! ‘Here we go’ to follow today after formal steps, five year deal. La Liga’s record fee this summer, €40m to Chelsea.”

Speaking amid the Killie clash, Rodgers told BBC Sportsound of O’Riley: "We are quite calm on that. Yeah, there's been offers for him but nowhere near the valuation of the player himself.

"He's just continuing to work every day, and like I said, he understands where it's at. But if you see his performance level all the way through pre-season and here today, he's very focused on helping the team, very focused on improving as a player, and he knows he's in a great place to do that.

"Until that changes then we will continue to work with Matt to help improve his game. I would love for one, Matt to be here. But also two, to have more tools to give it a real go at the Champions League.

"It's one of our big targets this season We want to see if we can get into those play-off phases and for that obviously with so many games, so many challenges in this season for us, we want to improve the squad. So, for Matt and other players, absolutely that's our challenge over these next three and a half weeks to hopefully get tooled up to have the best opportunity we can."