Cole Palmer’s penalty on Panenka in Chelsea’s thrilling win at Tottenham showed the “freedom” the England midfielder shares with “a lot of top players”, Blues manager Enzo Maresca said, as his top scorer aims to add to his 11 goals of the top division this season.
The prolific Palmer’s cheeky strike was his second penalty after the break in his side’s 4-3 win at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, coming back from 2-0 down after 11 minutes to go second ahead of this weekend’s fixtures .
“Cole is different from the rest but we have a lot of good players where the manager – in this case me – would feel happy and proud to work with them,” said Maresca, whose side are two points clear of Arsenal and four. behind leaders Liverpool, having played a game more than the Reds.
“A lot of top players have that (coolness in key moments) – they almost look like they don’t care, but it’s their way and being that way gives them more freedom.
“They can relax and you can see Cole is the same way. Cole was like this five years ago and he’s still the same. You don’t have to waste energy trying to convince him to be different.”
Together. pic.twitter.com/W28J0WmkU0
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) December 10, 2024
Cole Palmer’s goals
Palmer’s extra six assists in 15 Premier League games took his tally of direct goals this season behind only Mohamed Salah, who scored 13 goals and set up eight in 14 games for Liverpool.
None of Palmer’s 22 Premier League goals last season came in the 180 minutes he played against Brentford, who Chelsea host on Sunday (7pm GMT) – although he headed in Axel’s equaliser. Dashi in the 83rd minute in the 2-2 away match with the Bees. March 2.
“He behaves exactly as he should, with an emphasis on football and the important things,” Maresca added. “The most important thing is that he loves football.
📸#CFC | #TOTCHE pic.twitter.com/yngCfaVlMM
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) December 9, 2024
“He’s always one of the first to come out to the session, he starts playing with the ball and you can see in that moment who really loves football and those who just play football.
“He’s only 22 and there are a lot of things he can improve on … right now, everyone is marking him man-to-man.”
Palmer’s omission from Chelsea’s Conference League side meant he was not involved in their 3-1 win at Kazakhstan side Astana on Thursday, when Marc Guiu and Renato Veiga scored either side of Aleksandr Marochkin’s own goal for for the visitors to take a 3-0 lead after 39 minutes.
Chelsea vs Brentford
Chelsea have lost three and drawn two of their last five meetings with Bradford, last beating them at home in the league in 1946.
Each of those defeats came at Stamford Bridge, Thomas Frank’s side followed up the 4-1 winner in April 2022 with back-to-back 2-0 wins.
