Chelsea’s Cole Palmer certainly proved one important thing on Sunday during his team’s stunning victory away at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Chelsea got their first points of the Premier League season by thrashing Wolves 6-2 at Molineux Stadium this weekend. For Blues head coach Enzo Maresca, he secured his first league win since his summer arrival from Leicester City.
Cole Palmer, 22, certainly had a big hand to play in the impressive win on the road. The English star scored himself with a beautifully chipped finish in the first-half. Also, he provided a hat-trick of assists, creating all three of Noni Madueke’s second-half goals.
Chelsea’s player ratings against Wolves included a 9/10 for Palmer, while plenty of his other teammates also scoring highly.
Cole Palmer proves his best position to Enzo Maresca
Maresca is likely to take away so much information from Chelsea’s win at Wolves. However, if there’s one bit of knowledge that holds the most value, it’s that Palmer is a different animal in central positions.
Palmer started last weekend’s defeat to Manchester City in their opening league fixture on the right wing. In fairness, the 22-year-old’s got the quality and experience to do that job to a high standard, something he did at times last year as well.
The difference was night and day when he started against Wolves on Sunday in the No.10 role, though.
From a Chelsea perspective, it’s a huge positive when Palmer is getting lots of touches of the football and influencing the team’s attacks. Of course, from a central position he can drift into clever pockets of space and create chances at will.
The Palmer-Madueke connection was worth its weight in gold on Sunday, and fans will want to see much more of it moving forward. While Palmer can dictate from a No.10 position, Madueke has all the tools of an out-and-out right-winger.
It’s pretty clear that the message to Maresca is Palmer must play centrally behind a striker more often than not.
Chelsea’s best front four
Based off the early two weeks of the season, Chelsea supporters should agree on the best front four. It’s something that’s going to change over time, plus there’s a lot of fixtures to rotate, but a few individuals are really putting their hands up to impress.
There’s a lovely dynamic with Palmer as a No 10 working behind central striker Nicolas Jackson. As for the wings, Madueke and Pedro Neto are definitely shining the brightest so far.
Madueke Palmer Neto
Jackson
Palmer got 15 assists across all competitions last season for Chelsea, but with the attacking talent now around him that number should be expected to rise this term.
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