Chelsea legend fumes over treatment of Conor Gallagher and puts pressure on his £100m star

John Obi Mikel has described Chelsea's handling of the transfers of Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah as “bad business”.

The two Blues academy graduates were put up for sale this summer and talkSPORT understands both stars have been Banished from first team training.

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Chelsea are keen to get rid of Chalobah, while Gallagher was ready to move to Atletico Madridwith the midfielder even flying to Spain to complete the transfer.

However, Atletico have been left furious after the Blues' defeat. backed out of the deal after Samu Omorodion's move to Chelsea in the opposite direction fell through.

He has since flown home but is expected to train with the under-21s.

A number of Chelsea fans have been angered by their homegrown talents joining marginalised teams. Romelu Lukaku and Armando Broja.

And that includes former Blues star Mikel.

“Of course, two young men who bleed blue, exactly,” he said on his podcast. Obi One's Podcast. “From start to finish. At the club when they were kids and now we have to sell them to make sure the accounts add up.

“So it comes down to the owners just spending too much money and buying everyone who has a price. They just spend too much money, they buy too many players that we don't need.

“Now we have to sell, for me the best player of last season apart from Cole Palmer(that) was Conor Gallagher.

“He was the only player who could be seen trying hard, running and giving the performance that was needed to be at the club, you know what I mean.

“I think he should stay at the club. I think Chalobah when he came back from injury too. He was the best centre-back we had. I don’t think we lost a game when he came back, or probably one or two or something like that.

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“But he was absolutely fantastic when he came back from injury and played every game.

“Poch trusted him and brought him into the team, he played in all the matches and was fantastic. Now we have to sell those two players to balance the books.”

“Two young players who are bleeding Chelsea dry, and now they have to sell them to balance the books.”

And Mikel did not hold back when it came to deciding who to blame.

He continued: “I think it is bad business on the part of the owners. Absolutely bad business on the part of the owners.

“Now we’ve lost two fantastic players. I think: ‘Is Chalobah going to improve the team?’ Of course he is! Is Conor Gallagher going to improve the team? For me, yes.

“When I was playing, towards the end of the season, when I was playing with (Moises) Caicedo, the energy that he has, for me, we need it. We definitely need it.”

Chelsea have also sold products from their academy Ian Maatsen to Aston Villa for £37.5m, Omari Hutchinson to Ipswich for £18m and Michael Golding to Leicester for £5m.

However, the Blues still have a squad that is bursting at the seams.

Peter Neto, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Estevao Willian are among the New additions.

This is on top of the exorbitant amount of money that has already been spent. Todd Boehly and company since his arrival.

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That includes Enzo Fernandez, and Mikel believes the new campaign is the time for the Argentine to step up.

“He's a player who needs a great season,” he said. “We've talked about him, we've made excuses for him, he's won the World Cup, he's fantastic with Argentina.”

“But I think he needs to have a great season this season. We can't make excuses for him.”

Chelsea began their Premier League season against the reigning champions Manchester City on Sunday.