Chelsea's Player of the Season: Cole Palmer (2024)

For a sense of the swaggering style that went hand-in-hand with the spectacular substance of Cole Palmer’s breakthrough season at Chelsea, look no further than his comically deadpan description of his sublime first goal in a 6-0 rout of Everton in April.

“Got it and I just know there was loads of space,” he recalled in an interview for Chelsea’s in-house media channels this week.

“I’ve seen Jarrad (Branthwaite) come at me fast, so I ’megged him. Little flick, sent to Nico (Jackson), back, first time. Good goal, that one.”

Bestowing the award for Chelsea’s Player of the Season has not been this easy or uncontroversial since Eden Hazard’s swansong in 2018-19. That is particularly fitting because in both the way he has carried himself and the level at which he has consistently produced, Palmer is by far the closest thing Stamford Bridge has seen to a worthy heir to the brilliant Belgian.

The raw numbers jump off the page: 22 goals and 11 assists making for 33 direct goal involvements in 33 Premier League appearances, only the third player aged 22 or younger to rack up 30 or more direct goal involvements in a single season in England’s top flight this century (the other two being Erling Haaland last season and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2007-08, the year he won his first Ballon d’Or).

Palmer’s goals alone won Chelsea 15 points in 2023-24 according to Opta, more than anyone in the Premier League other than Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke. Combined, his goals and assists were worth 26 points, more than anyone else in the division and the difference between Mauricio Pochettino’s team finishing sixth and 16th.

The speed and scale of this ascent have been dizzying to witness and surprising even for Palmer, who by his own admission was “doing nothing, sat on the bench” at Manchester City a year ago. “I didn’t really have targets, but I had something in my head that, if I did play, then I would like 10 goals and 10 assists,” he added.

Even without penalties, the 13 goals and 11 assists from Palmer’s debut season at Chelsea fall broadly in line with that benchmark. But to remove the penalties is to ignore a key reason why he has established himself so quickly at Stamford Bridge as a special talent; the kind capable of turning a rebuilding team into a good one and, perhaps in time, of elevating a good one to greatness.

After nine nerveless conversions from the spot, several of them in highly pressurised circ*mstances, it is easy to forget that Palmer was a surprise choice to take the penalty that Raheem Sterling won with Chelsea a goal down against Burnley at Turf Moor in October.

On only his third start, he benefited from Pochettino’s lack of a defined penalty-taking hierarchy in the squad. This same lack of defined hierarchy later forced him to see off challenges from team-mates eager to relieve him of the responsibility, culminating in a farcical sequence involving Noni Madueke and Jackson in that Everton win.

None of it fazed Palmer, who scored key penalties against Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester City in four weeks immediately after seizing his chance against Burnley. He did not find the net from open play until December when he beat Andre Onana with a perfectly angled low shot after a diagonal run against boyhood club Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Rewatching the rest of Palmer’s non-penalty goals underlines the startling variety of his scoring threat. There are placed finishes with his left and right foot, fierce efforts from outside the box, movement and reactions befitting any poacher, a wonderfully guided header and a long-range lob of a stranded goalkeeper. None of it looks particularly lucky or unsustainable.

The fact that Palmer ended the season with more Premier League goals than any Chelsea player since Didier Drogba won the Golden Boot in 2009-10 is even more impressive considering his broader range of responsibilities within his team. Viewed by Pochettino as the only player in his squad (with the possible exception of Christopher Nkunku) capable of linking play between the opposition lines, he essentially functioned as the brain of the division’s fifth-best attack.

Pochettino gave Palmer the freedom to interpret where he could cause the most damage on the pitch, popping up anywhere between his most frequent starting position on the right flank and the more central pockets of space favoured by elite No 10s. He also empowered the 22-year-old to trust his skill and spatial awareness, and it is striking just how often the style and substance of his game meshed on the pitch.

Palmer listed his opener against Everton as his most satisfyingly skilful goal, but the outrageously nonchalant rounding of Luton Town goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski in December must run it close.

Defenders across the Premier League came to fear being faced up against him — a situation where the expertly disguised chop to the right is just as dangerous as the quick jink to the left. Try to cover both and you are liable to get “’megged”, as Branthwaite found out.

At his best in 2023-24, Palmer was that rarest of football phenomena: a driver of winning that doubles as a draw to sell stadium tickets and attract more eyeballs to TV screens around the world. “Hopefully, Cole Palmer will become a household name in America soon,” Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly said last month.

Incoming head coach Enzo Maresca knows Palmer well, having coached him for a year in Manchester City’s elite development squad. He also had a touchline view of the player’s most memorable assist: a delightful backheel into the stride of Carney Chukwuemeka against his Leicester City in an entertaining FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge in March that ended 4-2 to the home side.

How he plans to utilise Chelsea’s new talisman is one of next season’s most intriguing questions.

Maresca, a man who infused his football thesis at Coverciano with chess strategy, may quickly find that this more mature version of Palmer can be the queen on his board, capable of moving anywhere and doing anything, at any time.

(Top photo: Getty Images)

Liam is a Staff Writer for The Athletic, covering Chelsea. He previously worked for Goal covering the Premier League before becoming the Chelsea correspondent for ESPN in 2015, witnessing the unravelling of Jose Mourinho, the rise and fall of Antonio Conte, the brilliance of Eden Hazard and the madness of Diego Costa. He has also contributed to The Independent and ITV Sport. Follow Liam on Twitter @liam_twomey