20. Cole Palmer

[IMissEden 18]

This is a testament to Mentality. If every player had alike focus, ambition, yet lack of ego —- true obsession with playing the game how it should be played — you get a super team. It’s how Guardiola designed both Barcelona and City — no writers have unpacked it yet. Simply knowing Mentalities, and their peaks and twists. Aligning players that have harmonious qualities Inside, not outside. 

This is why I find it impossible to like, rate, see a great successful dominant future with Jackson, and more than a few others still. Mental midgets and ego lords in droves 

Exact repeat of Hazard having to play with B tier most his time here. Doesn’t have to be that lower frustrating path. Understand trajectory of qualities, start cutting losses and further honing recruitment model / policy. 

Edited October 1 by IMissEden

[IMissEden 18]

Good input Milan, if you can counter a point do it so that people have your better quality insight or experience to work with. Let’s go. On here for 18 years and think that’s conducive. On here 18 years and can’t tell up from down about this; if that post triggers you to act 18 which you’re obviously not. So what’s funny, or inaccurate. Do you often laugh at facts you think you know better about. 

Edited October 1 by IMissEden

[DDA 9,687]

Whats crazy about this lad is if you watch the highlights of his 2025… he should have had at least another 20 assists to his name if it wasn’t for our diabolical finishing. Unbelievable talent.

[NikkiCFC 7,923]

20 hours ago, DDA said:

Whats crazy about this lad is if you watch the highlights of his 2025…

Where can I buy time machine?

[Vesper 28,611]

Was Cole Palmer meant to be this good?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5812068/2024/10/03/cole-palmer-Chelsea-manchester-city-analysis/

On a cold, rainy morning in March 2016, Kevin Betsy, then England Under-15s coach, travelled to Warwick University. He was there to watch an under-14 Premier League international tournament featuring academy teams who had come through regional qualifiers across the country, as well as a select group of invited youth sides from some of Europe’s elite clubs.

One of Betsy’s priorities was to get a closer look at Manchester City, who boasted several of the country’s brightest prospects born in 2002. It did not take long for one of their attackers to catch his eye: Cole Palmer, playing in a shirt and shorts that looked much too big for him, already possessed many of the technical skills that are lighting up the Premier League at Chelsea but was physically a world away from what he would become.

“He was probably the smallest player on the pitch,” Betsy recalls of Palmer in an interview with The Athletic, “but very efficient, with outstanding technical quality.

“He had a lovely feel when receiving the ball, and he was able to dribble in tight spaces and then find combination passes in and around the box.”

Those attributes have become all too familiar to Premier League defenders since he made his debut for Chelsea in the competition in September 2023. Palmer’s 43 direct goal involvements (28 goals, 15 assists) in 39 league appearances for Chelsea even put him ahead of Manchester City’s goalscoring phenomenon Erling Haaland since the start of the 2023-24 season. He has been established as a legitimate contender to be considered the best attacker in England.

So rapid has been Palmer’s rise to superstardom since leaving City for Chelsea in a deal worth up to £42.5million ($56m) a year ago, that many are asking if anyone in football expected him to be this good. The answer is not entirely straightforward, not least because it takes in the physical challenges of adolescence that can alter the trajectories even of the most talented prospects in the unforgiving environment of elite academy football.

City saw the same qualities in Palmer that would later become obvious to Betsy when they signed Palmer to their academy at the age of nine.

“He stood out just in terms of how comfortable he was on the ball,” Scott Sellars, the club’s former head of academy coaching, tells The Athletic. “He never looked flustered and always looked like he had answers, even as a young boy. He had a great way of dropping his shoulder and going past people. I never like to use the word ‘natural’, but he had that ease of receiving, dribbling and decision-making at a very high level from a young age.”

The memory of watching the 10-year-old Palmer dominate a youth tournament in Germany for City sticks with Sellars more than a decade on. “It was very frantic, small pitches, people frightened to make a mistake, and Cole would just get the ball off the goalkeeper and dribble past people — past one, past two, past three,” he says. “He was only small by comparison to the other players, but he had that ability to keep going past people, inside and outside.

“We made a compilation video about a year later trying to show the talents we had in the academy, and the philosophy and methodology at the time, and Cole was in a lot of it because of his ability. That was the type of player we were looking to create: the player who could handle the ball and solve problems.”

But it would be an exaggeration to suggest that Palmer stood head and shoulders above the many other bright talents in City’s academy at the time — in part because he did not stand head and shoulders above any of his peers for the majority of his youth career.

Most grew up and bulked out much earlier and faster than he did, meaning Palmer endured no shortage of frustrating days as he waited for his body to catch up with his talent. “From age 13 to 16 is really difficult for the smaller, more technical players, and they can get lost and not have as much success as when they were younger, because it becomes a bit of a physical mismatch at times,” Sellars says.

 

Betsy had no reservations about including the small, slight Palmer in his England Under-15 squad, and offered a reassuring voice when it came to the physical difficulties he was experiencing.

“Cole’s technical ball manipulation meant he was able to out-feint or jink a player quite easily, but the player would catch up with him purely because of physicality,” he says.

“We identified that he would grow really well in his body in the next two to three years and it wouldn’t hinder his progress. It’s just, when you’re trying to deal with not being able to accelerate and beat a player one-versus-one because they’re physically stronger than you, that can be difficult for a young player. You might lose confidence.”

Palmer’s ironclad self-belief ensured that did not happen, backed by his father Jermaine, the keen amateur footballer who had helped him refine his immaculate touch with hours spent in the park before City found him. “His dad was strong in terms of believing in his technical ability over his size,” Sellars says. “He had great support from his family.”

Betsy moved up to coach England Under-16s the following year, and Palmer made only one start during what he has since admitted was the most testing stretch of his career.

“Physically, we had to manage him very delicately when he came on England camp, because he was going through a lot of growth and maturation,” Betsy says. “You can’t play significant minutes in a two or three-game international week. That comes with the player understanding the condition their body is in at that moment, and Cole was fully in the loop on that.”

Not everyone at City was convinced that Palmer would develop enough physically to make it at the top level. There was a lively internal debate about whether to offer the diminutive 16-year-old a professional contract that was eventually settled by Jason Wilcox, then the club’s academy director, who never wavered in his belief that he was too talented to discard.

“When we went to watch him at City Under-14s, Under-15s, Under-16s, Cole wasn’t always the standout player,” Betsy says. “He had a huge champion at the club in Jason. He was a huge fan of Cole. There were a couple of times we went to watch and Cole would be on the bench or wasn’t playing as well as he would have liked, but we were very convinced and Jason was very convinced that Cole would be the player that they and England believed.”

Even if City had made a different decision, it is unlikely that Palmer would have fallen far with his body of work at academy level. “I was at Wolves (as technical director) when he was 15, 16, and I would hear other people saying Cole might not get a scholarship,” Sellars says. “Behind the scenes I was saying, ‘Well if he doesn’t, give me a call’.”

---

A drastic growth spurt in his late teens validated Wilcox’s faith and transformed Palmer into the player now shining in a Chelsea shirt: listed at 6ft 2in tall, but with the touch in tight spaces and blend of technical skills more readily associated with much smaller attacking midfielders.

With that physical development came an uptick in Palmer’s on-pitch production, both for City’s elite development squad — where he worked with Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca in 2020-21 — and for England Under-21s, becoming a key contributor in qualification for the 2023 European Under-21 Championship.

City were convinced enough of his elite potential that when Southampton enquired about signing him in the summer of 2022 their interest was immediately rebuffed. Their analysis had indicated that he would be well suited to playing as a goalscoring No 10 in coach Ralph Hasenhuttl’s 4-2-2-2 system, but they were told that Palmer and Phil Foden were the two academy prospects who were off the table in transfer discussions.

It was a different story when Chelsea came calling a year later, ready to make a significant up-front investment in Palmer as well as offering a clearer path to the regular game time he craved after struggling to complete his first-team breakthrough at City. “The only thing Cole was waiting for, from the outside perspective, was minutes,” Betsy says.

What has happened since has exceeded even the most optimistic projections — and not just in terms of Palmer’s goals and assists. “I always felt in central areas he would score,” Sellars says. “He was always calm, composed, never flustered. It was just a case of him getting stronger. I thought he would grow, but I never thought he would be as tall as he is.”

“Manchester City recruited Cole at under-9 because of the huge talent they saw in him, and the same with England at under-15,” Betsy adds. “It was a slow burn in terms of his progression, purely because of his physical characteristics, but that comes with time and patience.

“No one has got a crystal ball in youth development — there are so many variables — but we had huge belief in Cole and that he could be one of the stars of the future for his club and country.”

Palmer is very much a star of the present at Chelsea and, with a contract that commits him to the club until 2033, a foundational pillar of the young team taking shape at Stamford Bridge.

Edited October 4 by Vesper

[NikkiCFC 7,923]

I remember when we signed him reading on Bluemoon forum words from one of their fans about quotes from one of the City youth coaches who said way before that he is going to be better than Foden so this is not surprise for some people. 

[Vesper 28,611]

lol, madness

 

[Vesper 28,611]

btw, I think it is General Shop (as in general store)

not generator shop

[King Kante 1,464]

On 04/10/2024 at 03:55, Vesper said:

Was Cole Palmer meant to be this good?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5812068/2024/10/03/cole-palmer-Chelsea-manchester-city-analysis/

On a cold, rainy morning in March 2016, Kevin Betsy, then England Under-15s coach, travelled to Warwick University. He was there to watch an under-14 Premier League international tournament featuring academy teams who had come through regional qualifiers across the country, as well as a select group of invited youth sides from some of Europe’s elite clubs.

One of Betsy’s priorities was to get a closer look at Manchester City, who boasted several of the country’s brightest prospects born in 2002. It did not take long for one of their attackers to catch his eye: Cole Palmer, playing in a shirt and shorts that looked much too big for him, already possessed many of the technical skills that are lighting up the Premier League at Chelsea but was physically a world away from what he would become.

“He was probably the smallest player on the pitch,” Betsy recalls of Palmer in an interview with The Athletic, “but very efficient, with outstanding technical quality.

“He had a lovely feel when receiving the ball, and he was able to dribble in tight spaces and then find combination passes in and around the box.”

Those attributes have become all too familiar to Premier League defenders since he made his debut for Chelsea in the competition in September 2023. Palmer’s 43 direct goal involvements (28 goals, 15 assists) in 39 league appearances for Chelsea even put him ahead of Manchester City’s goalscoring phenomenon Erling Haaland since the start of the 2023-24 season. He has been established as a legitimate contender to be considered the best attacker in England.

So rapid has been Palmer’s rise to superstardom since leaving City for Chelsea in a deal worth up to £42.5million ($56m) a year ago, that many are asking if anyone in football expected him to be this good. The answer is not entirely straightforward, not least because it takes in the physical challenges of adolescence that can alter the trajectories even of the most talented prospects in the unforgiving environment of elite academy football.

City saw the same qualities in Palmer that would later become obvious to Betsy when they signed Palmer to their academy at the age of nine.

“He stood out just in terms of how comfortable he was on the ball,” Scott Sellars, the club’s former head of academy coaching, tells The Athletic. “He never looked flustered and always looked like he had answers, even as a young boy. He had a great way of dropping his shoulder and going past people. I never like to use the word ‘natural’, but he had that ease of receiving, dribbling and decision-making at a very high level from a young age.”

The memory of watching the 10-year-old Palmer dominate a youth tournament in Germany for City sticks with Sellars more than a decade on. “It was very frantic, small pitches, people frightened to make a mistake, and Cole would just get the ball off the goalkeeper and dribble past people — past one, past two, past three,” he says. “He was only small by comparison to the other players, but he had that ability to keep going past people, inside and outside.

“We made a compilation video about a year later trying to show the talents we had in the academy, and the philosophy and methodology at the time, and Cole was in a lot of it because of his ability. That was the type of player we were looking to create: the player who could handle the ball and solve problems.”

But it would be an exaggeration to suggest that Palmer stood head and shoulders above the many other bright talents in City’s academy at the time — in part because he did not stand head and shoulders above any of his peers for the majority of his youth career.

Most grew up and bulked out much earlier and faster than he did, meaning Palmer endured no shortage of frustrating days as he waited for his body to catch up with his talent. “From age 13 to 16 is really difficult for the smaller, more technical players, and they can get lost and not have as much success as when they were younger, because it becomes a bit of a physical mismatch at times,” Sellars says.

 

Betsy had no reservations about including the small, slight Palmer in his England Under-15 squad, and offered a reassuring voice when it came to the physical difficulties he was experiencing.

“Cole’s technical ball manipulation meant he was able to out-feint or jink a player quite easily, but the player would catch up with him purely because of physicality,” he says.

“We identified that he would grow really well in his body in the next two to three years and it wouldn’t hinder his progress. It’s just, when you’re trying to deal with not being able to accelerate and beat a player one-versus-one because they’re physically stronger than you, that can be difficult for a young player. You might lose confidence.”

Palmer’s ironclad self-belief ensured that did not happen, backed by his father Jermaine, the keen amateur footballer who had helped him refine his immaculate touch with hours spent in the park before City found him. “His dad was strong in terms of believing in his technical ability over his size,” Sellars says. “He had great support from his family.”

Betsy moved up to coach England Under-16s the following year, and Palmer made only one start during what he has since admitted was the most testing stretch of his career.

“Physically, we had to manage him very delicately when he came on England camp, because he was going through a lot of growth and maturation,” Betsy says. “You can’t play significant minutes in a two or three-game international week. That comes with the player understanding the condition their body is in at that moment, and Cole was fully in the loop on that.”

Not everyone at City was convinced that Palmer would develop enough physically to make it at the top level. There was a lively internal debate about whether to offer the diminutive 16-year-old a professional contract that was eventually settled by Jason Wilcox, then the club’s academy director, who never wavered in his belief that he was too talented to discard.

“When we went to watch him at City Under-14s, Under-15s, Under-16s, Cole wasn’t always the standout player,” Betsy says. “He had a huge champion at the club in Jason. He was a huge fan of Cole. There were a couple of times we went to watch and Cole would be on the bench or wasn’t playing as well as he would have liked, but we were very convinced and Jason was very convinced that Cole would be the player that they and England believed.”

Even if City had made a different decision, it is unlikely that Palmer would have fallen far with his body of work at academy level. “I was at Wolves (as technical director) when he was 15, 16, and I would hear other people saying Cole might not get a scholarship,” Sellars says. “Behind the scenes I was saying, ‘Well if he doesn’t, give me a call’.”

---

A drastic growth spurt in his late teens validated Wilcox’s faith and transformed Palmer into the player now shining in a Chelsea shirt: listed at 6ft 2in tall, but with the touch in tight spaces and blend of technical skills more readily associated with much smaller attacking midfielders.

With that physical development came an uptick in Palmer’s on-pitch production, both for City’s elite development squad — where he worked with Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca in 2020-21 — and for England Under-21s, becoming a key contributor in qualification for the 2023 European Under-21 Championship.

City were convinced enough of his elite potential that when Southampton enquired about signing him in the summer of 2022 their interest was immediately rebuffed. Their analysis had indicated that he would be well suited to playing as a goalscoring No 10 in coach Ralph Hasenhuttl’s 4-2-2-2 system, but they were told that Palmer and Phil Foden were the two academy prospects who were off the table in transfer discussions.

It was a different story when Chelsea came calling a year later, ready to make a significant up-front investment in Palmer as well as offering a clearer path to the regular game time he craved after struggling to complete his first-team breakthrough at City. “The only thing Cole was waiting for, from the outside perspective, was minutes,” Betsy says.

What has happened since has exceeded even the most optimistic projections — and not just in terms of Palmer’s goals and assists. “I always felt in central areas he would score,” Sellars says. “He was always calm, composed, never flustered. It was just a case of him getting stronger. I thought he would grow, but I never thought he would be as tall as he is.”

“Manchester City recruited Cole at under-9 because of the huge talent they saw in him, and the same with England at under-15,” Betsy adds. “It was a slow burn in terms of his progression, purely because of his physical characteristics, but that comes with time and patience.

“No one has got a crystal ball in youth development — there are so many variables — but we had huge belief in Cole and that he could be one of the stars of the future for his club and country.”

Palmer is very much a star of the present at Chelsea and, with a contract that commits him to the club until 2033, a foundational pillar of the young team taking shape at Stamford Bridge.

My money is that they pulled a Messi on him and pumped him up with HGH. 

[KEVINAA 85]

 

Compilation of Cole Palmer

[Vesper 28,611]

Brand new Cole Palmer/Burberry 9 minute film

 

[Vesper 28,611]

Cole Palmer crowned 2023-24 England men’s Player of the Year, edging out Bellingham and Saka

https://www.malaymail.com/news/sports/2024/10/09/cole-palmer-crowned-2023-24-england-mens-player-of-the-year-edging-out-bellingham-and-saka/153010

Wednesday, 09 Oct 2024 9:39 AM MYT

LONDON, Oct 9 — Cole Palmer has been named the 2023-24 England men's Player of the Year, the Football Association said yesterday.

Chelsea midfielder Palmer, 22, was voted Three Lions' fans' favourite player ahead of Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham, in second, and Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka — the winner of the previous two editions — in third.

Palmer made his England debut in a 2-0 home win over Malta in November 2023 and earned nine senior caps, including five appearances at Euro 2024, scoring twice in that period.

One of his goals came in July's final defeat to Spain in Berlin, after he set up Ollie Watkins for a late winner against the Netherlands in the semi-final.

Palmer, who has scored six goals in seven Premier League games this season, became the first Chelsea player to win the award since current England assistant coach Ashley Cole in 2010. — Reuters

[IMissEden 18]

I hope we can enjoy having the best player in the world, without Contrarians wanting to Pump The Breaks out of caution, without at all evaluating a thing. “One of the best players in the Premier League on current form” type senile statements on social media. Is a shame so many are raised to parrot Well Wait A Minute over things they don’t understand. It’s like they can’t fathom others are concluding something before themselves, so peddle a meta frame of, Let’s Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves Guys. The people who comment on football for a living while never getting anything right 😆😆😆

Very very very enjoyable times just based on Palmer. It is what it is. It’s tryhard to pigeonhole a Bayern or Madrid one trick pony into the spot. 
Eden was best in league. Messi was still around, and others still had exceptional form. I think this is the first time we’ve had the best player in the world unless we appreciate say Terry or Makelele in the same way lol. 

Edited October 9 by IMissEden

[Fulham Broadway 16,779]

On 05/10/2024 at 09:53, KEVINAA said:

 

Compilation of Cole Palmer

Reminds of another Manc -  Mr Karl Pilkington

[Fulham Broadway 16,779]

Starts tonight

[Fulham Broadway 16,779]

Spanish papers saying Pep has instructed Man City Board to buy back Palmer for £125 million

[Vesper 28,611]

On 14/10/2024 at 21:35, Fulham Broadway said:

Spanish papers saying Pep has instructed Man City Board to buy back Palmer for £125 million

that is from the horrific Spanish outlet Fichajes, the worst, most fraudelent major paper/site in Spain

almost every report from them is a complete lie, made up out of thin air, when it comes to transfers

[Fulham Broadway 16,779]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

almost every report from them is a complete lie, made up out of thin air,

Greek commie journos ?