Cole Palmer is putting together a historic breakthrough Premier League season, regardless of whether or not he walks away with a surprise Golden Boot.
Only two players this century have started a Premier League campaign aged 22 or younger and registered 30 or more direct goal involvements (goals and assists combined): Cristiano Ronaldo, whose 31 goals and six assists in the 2007-08 season fired Manchester United to the title and helped secure a first Ballon d’Or, and Erling Haaland, whose 36 goals for dominant champions Manchester City last year set a new single-season record in the competition along with eight assists.
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Palmer, with 20 goals and nine assists in the 2023-24 Premier League, needs only one more goal or assist in Chelsea’s final seven matches to join that exclusive club.
Then there is the star-making potential of the FA Cup, which affords Palmer another chance to make former club City regret selling him to Chelsea in Saturday’s semi-final at Wembley. He has already cost Pep Guardiola’s Premier League title-chasers two points with a nerveless 95th-minute penalty in a 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge in November and shone again in a 1-1 draw in the return fixture at the Etihad Stadium in February.
Palmer has carried himself like an emerging superstar for much of this season, as well as producing at the level of one. With the help of some expert insight, The Athletic breaks down what makes him so compelling and special.
His left foot
It has become one of the most thrillingly promising sights in the Premier League this season: Palmer standing still facing a frozen defender, his body slightly angled, his left foot hovering almost imperceptibly just above the floor, his eyes primed to spot the slightest movement that might signal an incoming tackle attempt.
The options from there can feel almost endless. He could take the standard winger route and drop a shoulder before jinking away to his left. He could fake to his left and chop the ball to his right, as he did to flummox Manchester United’s Diogo Dalot at Stamford Bridge this month. He could drag it back and go in either direction; just ask Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who was turned into a human spinning top by one such move at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in November.
Or he could uncork what appears to be his favourite party piece: a devilish nutmeg, such as the one that disintegrated Jarrad Branthwaite, wowed Stamford Bridge and initiated the sequence that led to his sumptuous opening goal against Everton last weekend.
“He’s almost like a matador showing his shoulder,” former Bristol City and Sunderland manager Lee Johnson tells The Athletic. “Everything about his posture says, ‘I’m going to play a quality pass now’.
“Mainly it’s his technical ability and where he leaves the ball. He leaves the ball in a position where, within one touch, he can hurt you and that’s difficult for defenders.”
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Palmer possesses the most cultured left foot seen at Chelsea since Juan Mata and, coupled with his natural showmanship, his technical mastery lends a laser-like precision to all aspects of his attacking game. His average of 4.1 live-ball passes that result in a shot attempt per 90 minutes this season ranks fifth in the Premier League among players with at least 1,000 minutes played, demonstrating his creativity.
His left foot also has broader tactical benefits for his team.
“There are different angles on the pitch (available to a left footer),” Johnson adds. “More teams typically attack down the right because of the number of right footers in teams, who naturally open out and play to the right flank, so when you have a left footer centrally it gives you another dimension to find different pockets of space and angles to penetrate a back line.”
His calmness on the pitch
Palmer’s angry shove of Nicolas Jackson during the farcical three-way tussle for the right to take a penalty in the Everton game might be the first time he has lost his cool in a Chelsea shirt.
No other opponent, environment or circumstance has succeeded in flustering him in victory or defeat this season and no stage has proven too big. Vital penalties against Tottenham, Arsenal, City and Manchester United were dispatched without hesitation and he was Chelsea’s most dangerous, least afraid performer in the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley.
“You’re talking about someone who has great mental strength,” former Newcastle United and England striker Alan Shearer says of Palmer. “Everything looks calm and measured.”
What is his secret? “There are some people who are great athletes and naturally high in emotional stability and low in neuroticism,” says sports psychologist Dan Abrahams. “Equally, that can be learned. In psychology, we would call it ‘a trait’ and ‘a state’.
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“He’s grown up in an environment at Manchester City where he would be exposed to people who would be introducing him to techniques that make him more mentally skilful, or performance philosophies that help him stay calm. He might just be a great learner of these things and subsequently, his nervous system has learned how to cope in these situations.
“Something that’s becoming more common in coaching is called ‘achievement goal orientation’. You can be ego-oriented — focused on out-performing others — or task-focused.
“If someone is task-focused, they’re focusing on controllable things. For an attacker, that might be looking for space, getting between and behind the defence, linking with midfield, scanning for opportunities. Those things are more controllable than ‘got to score, got to win’.
“What we know from the research and the practical evidence is that task focus tends to calm players down, to lessen stress responses and anxiety.”
Palmer’s charmingly nonchalant persona in interviews gives away little about the inner workings of his mind, but the glaring quality of his football education in City’s academy suggests that, in every aspect, the man lighting up Stamford Bridge is the product of his nature and his nurture.
His shooting
Palmer is not a prolific goalscorer in the traditional sense — only 11 of his 20 Premier League goals this season have come from open play — but that return constitutes a significant over-performance relative to his 7.9 non-penalty expected goals (xG), indicating that he fares much better than average with the shooting chances that come his way.
As can be seen from his shot map below, a significant proportion of his 73 shot attempts in the Premier League this season have come from outside the penalty area and have yielded as many goals for Palmer (three) as the six-yard box.
His average shot distance (22 yards) and xG per shot attempt (0.11, which suggests about one in 10 of his shots would be expected to go in) underline that head coach Mauricio Pochettino empowers his top scorer to let fly whenever he senses an opening.
Palmer has also scored in a variety of ways from outside the box: side-footing into the far corner against Everton, whipping a shot just inside the near post against Newcastle, lobbing a stricken Jordan Pickford with his supposedly weaker right foot.
“You’re picking a spot and backing yourself to find that spot, whether it’s from 15, 20 or 25 yards,” Shearer adds. “It’s one thing picking a spot and another to find it.
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“You’ve got a split second, maybe two, to decide how you’re going to finish, where you can finish, and then you’ve got to pull the trigger. To have that quick thinking and then the ability to pull it off is special.”
Inside the box, there have been opportunistic goals, like the close-range conversion of Raheem Sterling’s low cross against Sheffield United or the rebound header against Everton. “His movement starts well before the ball came into the box,” Shearer says. “You take a gamble and sometimes it pays off. When you’re in the form he’s in, it falls to you more often than not.”
He generally favours placement over power and has a clear preference for the bottom corner to the goalkeeper’s left. He almost never shoots high, but he almost never needs to.
Then there was the outrageous cocktail of technique and composure to roll the ball around Luton Town goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski. “What he’s shown this season is an ability to go ‘cold’ (composed) in the box and around the box,” Johnson says. “That is really difficult to do.
“You look at Frank Lampard as an example. What did he have? He had the ability to time his runs, he went cold when it mattered and he was a great professional who worked on the library of finishes. Cole Palmer has got those things as well and he’s showing them regularly.”
His mental sharpness
To watch Palmer is to watch a footballer who thinks at a higher speed and definition than many of his team-mates or opponents, who can use his mind to control not just the movement of his own body, but also the flow of events around him.
On the ball, he never seems rushed, even when pressed. Off the ball, he is the danger, often recognising and moving into advantageous areas before defenders can react.
Whether deployed as a false nine, a No 10 or on the right wing, Pochettino empowers Palmer to move into and through the right half-space to receive the ball and do his best work.
“Younger players are often a bit green,” Johnson says. “They’re really honest — they run about and get on top of people and the ball. Palmer doesn’t do that. He stays away from the play and then, when people find him or the ball breaks to him, he’s in space. Not only that but he’s got the awareness and the ability to scan — to look at what’s on, where the space is.
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“It’s still not easy. You can rotate your head as much as you like, but it’s about taking in the pictures. That’s his football IQ, to slow down the mind’s eye and find the space.”
This mental sharpness extends to whenever Chelsea are out of possession and Palmer becomes a pressing menace, combining fierce intensity with an intimate understanding of where to position himself to plant maximum doubt in the mind of a passer. Pickford is far from the first opponent to essentially give him the ball and he will not be the last.
“That’s an intelligence to cut off the passing lanes and recognise the right time to go,” Johnson adds. “You’ve also got to give credit to the coaches he’s had on that front. You can see the positional coaching that he’s had from the best, from Guardiola and Pochettino.
“The position he plays at the moment, as a No 10 or ‘9.5‘, has a lot of responsibility to set the press, so you need somebody with intelligence.”
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His penalty technique
Penalties have helped define Palmer’s breakthrough season, punctuating his rapid rise to the top of Chelsea’s dressing room hierarchy and establishing his credentials as a man to be relied upon in the biggest, most pressurised moments.
His first four Chelsea goals came from the spot, escalating in profile and importance: to take the lead against Burnley, to go 1-0 up against Arsenal, to equalise away at Tottenham, to level in stoppage time against City. All four — and the five that have followed — were converted confidently and with an endearingly traditional method.
Palmer’s approach features no extended run-ups, no stutter steps or hops, and no other elaborate deceptions. He simply takes a breath to steady himself, runs up and strikes the ball exactly where he intends to put it.
“My impression is he’s using the goalkeeper-independent method,” says Ben Lyttleton, penalty consultant and author of Twelve Yards: The Art and Psychology of the Perfect Penalty. “You’re picking your spot and going with that, knowing that even if the goalkeeper goes the right way, you’re striking it so well that he’s not going to save it or get there in time.”
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Six of Palmer’s nine penalties for Chelsea have been directed towards the bottom corner to the goalkeeper’s left, but only Tottenham’s Guglielmo Vicario (who tipped Palmer’s penalty onto the post but could not keep it out) dived the right way on those occasions. “Maybe there’s something about his body shape, his positioning, or even his eyes that we can’t quite see that suggests he’s going to go the other way,” Lyttleton adds.
Perhaps it is also because he has mixed things up just enough: shooting low to the right of David Raya, high to the right of Ederson and hitting Arijanet Muric with a Panenka. “He is slightly randomising it and that’s what the best penalty takers do,” Lyttleton says. “He’s scored three in a row to his natural side, so the question now is will he keep on going or is it time to change?”
Shearer details a similar approach. “I always knew where I was going, who I was playing against, if I’d taken a penalty against him before, where I put it, where I put my last penalty… then it comes down to mind games. When you’re as calm and look as calm as Palmer does, that also has a detrimental effect on the goalkeeper.”
Palmer offered a more straightforward explanation of his method after scoring two penalties against United: “I want to keep my focus and strike the ball clean.”
Lyttleton is optimistic about his chances of maintaining his streak.
“They’re decisive and the goalkeepers are often going the wrong way,” he says. “If there are tells in his technique, goalkeepers are not wise to them yet.”
His celebration
One final feature contributing to the sense of Palmer striding fully formed into Premier League superstardom this season is how he already has a signature goal celebration: arms crossed with hands rubbing his shivering shoulders in a mock attempt to warm himself up.
Like most things, it is not an original invention, as Palmer explained shortly after doing it for the first time in Chelsea’s 3-2 win over Luton in December. “My boy Morgs did one for Middlesbrough, so I told him I’d do it too if I scored,” he said, referring to former Manchester City academy team-mate Morgan Rogers, now of Aston Villa, who had marked a winning goal against West Bromwich Albion in similar fashion a week earlier.
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But that hardly matters — Palmer owns the celebration in the public imagination, not least because of its easy connotation with his ‘Cold Palmer’ nickname. If his upward trajectory continues, it is easy to imagine it becoming every bit as recognisable as Ronaldo’s “Siuuu” leap or Kylian Mbappe’s folded arm pose.
That carries real brand value, taken to another level by Gareth Bale in 2013 when he successfully trademarked his signature heart celebration with his shirt number under the name ‘Eleven of Hearts’. For reasons of practicality as well as personality, it is difficult to envision Palmer taking a similar path.
“Several players have their own celebrations but in most cases, their celebrations are not original,” says Jose Maria Mendez, head of EMEA intellectual property and technology practice at Baker McKenzie.
“So it cannot be considered, technically speaking, a choreography. If at any time one of these celebrations could be considered a choreography and, therefore, original enough, it might be registered as a copyright, but it would be very challenging. You have to personalise it.”
Not that there is any real need to go that far. Kids could be emulating the ‘Cold Palmer’ celebration in greater numbers before the end of the year if it is included in EA Sports FC 25, the video game, and Palmer’s authentically funny public persona will enhance his popularity as long as his performances on the pitch merit weekly adulation.
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(All photos: Getty Images; designed by Eamonn Dalton)
