Crystal Palace manager Patrick Vieira has failed to rule out trying to bring Conor Gallagher back to the club from Chelsea.
The 22-year-old enjoyed a superb loan spell at Selhurst Park last season, scoring eight goals in 34 Premier League appearances to break into Gareth Southgate’s England squad.
A number of Premier League clubs have shown interest in signing Gallagher on loan or on a permanent basis – Palace, Everton, West Ham and Newcastle are among the others – but Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has been keen to integrate him into the Blues’ first team.
However, Gallagher’s season has got off to a shaky start. He was substituted at half-time during Chelsea’s recent 3-0 defeat at Leeds and was then sent off on Saturday for two yellow cards against Leicester, both of which were picked up in the first 30 minutes of the match.
A move away continues to be speculated, but Vieira, speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of Palace’s game against Brentford, refused to be drawn on a possible bid for Gallagher – though he didn’t rule one out either.
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“It’s difficult to talk about players who are at other football clubs,” Vieira said. “Conor is a Chelsea player, and until they say otherwise there is no point us thinking about what may or may not be possible to do.
“We have people who are working on trying to improve the squad. We are short of numbers, we need players, and we will try to bring those players. If not, I’m quite happy with the players we have, we will work and try to win football matches.”
“The only focus is the game tomorrow,” he added. “We have to bounce back from defeat to Manchester City, it’s about recovering and trying to cover some parts of the game we need to improve.
“We will have time to talk about what we need to do in the market, the club knows what we need and there are people who are working to see if we can make it happen or not.”
