Cole Palmer is already in the fight for the Premier League Golden Boot. The Englishman scored a poker in Chelsea’s overwhelming victory against Everton (6-0) and showed that he is one of the most decisive players in the league, on par with the twenty goals that Erling Haaland has this season.
Palmer, at 21 years old, challenged Pep Guardiola last season and asked for more minutes. He saw himself prepared for it and to take a step forward. He didn’t want to wait for his chance on the bench and spend years in and out of the team, like Phil Foden. He wanted to be a starter now, and that’s why he left in the summer.
Chelsea paid 60 million for him and it wasn’t crazy. It has been proven that it was even cheap and that if this team has any reason to smile it is because of him.
In another exhibition, Palmer scored a perfect hat trick in half an hour, after a goal with his left foot, one with his head and another with his right. He scored a penalty in the second half and, together with a good goal from Nico Jackson, led Everton’s victory.
His first action of the game, at thirteen minutes, was a gem. He threw a shot at Branthwaite, one of those centre-backs for whom Manchester United will pay 60 million euros in the future, he made a wall with Jackson and adjusted the ball first to the post. A first great goal to uncork the night at Stamford Bridge.
It was followed by a goal from a center forward, from a rogue. The first one arrived on a rebound from Pickford and headed it into goal.
Before half an hour, he would take advantage of another gift from the English goalkeeper, this time ruder. Pickford got overconfident, mishandled the ball outside the area and Palmer needed two touches to do his magic. He controlled it and with his right hand, the less good one, he sent it into the net. A very difficult goal and one that he completed with surgical precision.
Despite the win, Everton had their chances and if it weren’t for Beto’s lack of aim, they could have tightened the game a bit.
Before the break, Jackson, with a great goal on the turn after a cross from Cucurella, settled the match.
Sean Dyche changed half the team at half-time, but the 4-0 was already too much and, by sheer inertia, chances continued to come for Chelsea, until Doucouré brought down Palmer from behind and the ‘Blues’ found a way to foul their victory.
Without any need for it and with Palmer as the designated shooter, with nine of nine penalties scored this season, Madueke and Jackson took advantage of the fact that the ’10’ was hurting on the ground from the stomp to fight over who should take the penalty.
Madueke held on to the ball and Jackson reprimanded him, to the point that it was Conor Gallagher, the captain, who took the ball from Madueke and gave it to Palmer. If not for the captain’s intervention, Madueke would have confronted Jackson. He even made a couple of threats to go after the African striker again, once the mood seemed calmer.
The hug they gave each other, once Palmer scored and made his poker, was little more than forced.
With the change and consequent applause from Palmer, ten minutes from time, the uncertainty of whether Palmer would equal Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, Kun Agüero, Jermaine Defoe and Dimitar Berbatov as the only footballers in the history of the Premier to score five so many in the same meeting. The seven that Ted Drake scored for Aston Villa with Arsenal in 1935 and which are the history of the English First Division are far away.
To round off the night, youth player Alfie Gilchrist scored his first goal in a Chelsea shirt.
This victory allows Chelsea to hold on to the possibility of going to Europe. It is ninth, three points behind the seventh position that Manchester United currently has and which can give access to the Conference League, as long as England takes fifth place for the ‘Champions’. Mauricio Pochettino’s men also have one game less than the ‘Red Devils’.
– Datasheet:
6 – Chelsea: Petrovic; Taste (Gilchrist, m.88), Silva, Chalobah, Cucurella; Caicedo, Gallagher, Palmer (Casadei, m.80); Madueke (Chukwuemeka, m.72), Mudryk (Chilwell, m.79) and Jackson (Washington, m.88).
0 – Everton: Pickford; Coleman (Patterson, m.46 (Godfrey, m.92)), Tarkowski, Branthwaite (Keane, m.57), Mykolenko; Young, Garner (Harrison, m.46), Onana (Gomes, m.46), McNeil, Doucouré; y Beto.
Goles: 1-0. Palmer, m.13, 2-0. Palmer, m.18, 3-0. Palmer, m.29, 4-0. Jackson, m.44, 5-0. Palmer, m.64 y 6-0. Gilchrist, m.91.
Referee: Paul Tierney cautioned Mudryk (m.40) for Chelsea and Garner (m.28), Young (m.36), Tarkowski (m.52) and Keane (m.66) for Everton.
Incidents: Match corresponding to matchday 33 of the Premier League played at the Stamford Bridge stadium (London). EFE
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