If Chelsea could do 2023 all over again they might just change everything, except for Cole Palmer, who produced some utter filth in a 3-2 win over Luton that featured quite the late wobble.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Cole Palmer went to the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts for Chelsea, for the season and the calendar year, with his seventh and eighth of the campaign at Kennilworth Road.
We don’t think we’re being churlish by suggesting any of his teammates would have snatched at, scuffed or squandered his first chance, a clinical drive into the far corner. While only a very select few players in world football would have converted his second with such filthy and wonderful aplomb.
The £42m summer signing from Manchester City is just about the only positive for Chelsea in a rotten 2023 in which their 20 new footballers have helped them amass 48 points from 45 games. It’s been embarrassing, pathetic; the worst in the memories of countless Chelsea fans with spouses, mortgages and children.
2024 can hardly be worse, and 80 minutes of Chelsea’s last game of 2023 offered hope that it could be significantly better.
Luton have beaten Newcastle and put the willies up Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool on their own patch this season, and would have smelled ‘Big Club’ blood at Kennilworth Road on Saturday, given Chelsea’s struggles and well-documented inexperience.
But up until the last 10 minutes, in which utter madness ensued, the Blues were calm and poised in the expectation of the opposite; they had the air of a team that knew they could win this game in relative comfort, and should have done.
Armando Broja held the ball up well and was a more than useful outlet to relieve pressure along with Nicolas Jackson, who looked more of a threat coming from the left than he has done in a central role, and provided a brilliant assist for Palmer’s admittedly far more brilliant goal.
Moises Caicedo and Conor Gallagher pinched the ball in midfield and kept things simple, providing an effective screen in front of the back four, which was marshalled superbly by Thiago Silva.
Noni Madueke scored for the second game on the bounce, firing the ball into the roof of the net having been set up by Palmer, and was direct and positive whenever he was given the opportunity to run at defenders, looking at times a little like Bukayo Saka. Wouldn’t that be nice.
The game would have been chalked up as a professional away Premier League performance before a truly astonishing lack of game management towards the end of the game led to feelings of great relief at the final whistle. Chelsea escaped battered a bruised from a game they should have skipped away from with all three points.
Alfie Doughty and Tahith Chong got in time and again on Chelsea’s right, delivering cross after cross, scoring from two opportunities and hitting the woodwork with two others. It was a period of utter dominance over Chelsea that will have Luton boss Rob Edwards kicking himself that he didn’t start pushing slightly earlier.
Chelsea needed Palmer’s brilliance, and every part of his second goal was brilliant: his run through the heart of Luton’s defence; rolling his studs over the ball to leave Thomas Kaminski floundering; one, two, three touches before side-footing the ball nonchalantly into the back of the net as defenders scrambled to block.
“That’s why we call him Cold Palmer,” Madueke said after the game.
Mauricio Pochettino embraces Thiago Silva.
For Chelsea this season he’s not only scored the most goals (8) and got the joint most assists (4) but has also created the most chances (27), the most big chances (7) and played the most passes into the box (74).
The only player under the age of 21 in Europe’s top five league to have more goal involvements than Palmer’s 12 is Jude Bellingham on 15.
Cole Palmer is a serious footballer, and the fact that he’s the only success story in a dumpster fire of a year for Chelsea shouldn’t detract from how brilliant he’s been, but rather increase the regard he’s held in.
As every other multi-million pound signing has found at Stamford Bridge, it’s not easy to thrive in a failing team. Just imagine how good Palmer would look in a really top team. Manchester City, for example.
