Martin Keown was amazed by Chelsea’s Cole Palmer after watching his performance on Saturday.
Cole Palmer, who’s enjoying a stellar first season in Chelsea colours, yet again stepped up for his side this afternoon.
The 21-year-old attacker scored a first-half penalty to earn the Blues a 1-0 victory at home to Fulham, which lifts them up to eighth in the Premier League table.
On top of his ninth Chelsea goal, the playmaker produced an eye-catching display with some genius moments on the ball.
Martin Keown described Palmer’s impact at Chelsea as “incredible” after watching his latest contribution against Fulham.
He even paid him a mega compliment by comparing the Blues youngster to Kevin De Bruyne, his former Manchester City teammate and Premier League great.
“Palmer played a De Bruyne-like pass, it’s the kind of pass we hadn’t seen in this game yet,” Keown said via talkSPORT.
“Palmer sees these opportunities on the pitch. We talk about a helicopter vision of the game from De Bruyne, and I think Palmer has that as well.
“I think Palmer is the one young player here who sees himself with that calmness. It was never in doubt [scoring the penalty], he’s so confident in front of goal.
“… Palmer’s statistics are phenomenal – there’s only Jude Bellingham ahead of him as an Under-21 player throughout Europe, it’s incredible and he’s done it without us really noticing.
““He’s icy cool. When you see him take the penalty you can see him sort of going, ‘Fantastic, this is my moment, give us the ball’ – a lot of other players would be shirking that responsibility.”
Cole Palmer against Fulham
It’s important for everyone not to get too carried away with Palmer, but it’s so obvious he’s a special talent with a massive future.
The left-footed playmaker would be a shoe-in for our England squad at Euro 2024 this summer, but will Gareth Southgate think the same?
Speaking on his YouTube channel this week, Ben Foster compared Palmer to a young Phil Foden.
It’s obvious from watching Palmer that he spent years around the Man City squad training every day with the likes of De Bruyne, Foden and Bernardo Silva.
He’s got a long way to matching Man City’s world-class superstars but he’s on the right track!
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