Cole Palmer is the most efficient footballer in Europe

Only five footballers have scored five goals in a game in Premier League history: Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, Jermain Defoe, Dimitar Berbatov and Sergio Aguero.

But none of them reached the mark that has never been broken since the league was founded in 1992 and which Cole Palmer has now become the first player to achieve: Palmer scored four goals in a first half. The Chelsea FC offensive player needed just 20 minutes to score four goals against Brighton & Hove Albion (4-2) in the league, including a hat trick within ten minutes.

The duel with Brighton, through which Chelsea established itself in the top group of the table, was “perhaps” the best match of his career so far, said the 22-year-old, as usual reservedly. He had already scored four goals against Everton (6-0) in the previous season. The only other Chelsea player with two four-packs is Frank Lampard; he watched Saturday’s game in the stadium box.

The most efficient player in Europe’s top leagues

Since moving from Manchester City in the summer of 2023, the England international has totaled 28 goals and 15 assists in 39 league games for Chelsea. Nobody else in the Premier League, not even the goalscorer Erling Haaland, who shattered the records at Manchester City, has achieved such a record during this time. This year, Palmer even leads the list of players with the most goals in the top European leagues – ahead of Harry Kane (27) from FC Bayern and Haaland (24).

Former England international Theo Walcott compared Palmer on the BBC to the Dutchman Dennis Bergkamp, ​​who was once known for setting up goals as much as scoring them. Palmer is also a mixture of striker, playmaker and winger. This season, Chelsea’s new coach Enzo Maresca, who trained him for a season with Manchester City’s juniors years ago, has so far deployed him behind the only striker Nicolas Jackson. In this position, Palmer uses his freedom. Under Maresca’s predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, he often played on the right side – as in the national team.

Palmer’s style of play is supple and flexible, most notable being his sharp and precise left-footed shot. The tabloid “Daily Mail” wrote that compared to the “sledgehammer” Haaland, the boy from the Manchester suburb of Wythenshawe was more like a “Swiss army knife”. He scored all of his goals against Brighton with his left foot, first a well-considered shot, then a penalty, a free kick from 25 meters and a low shot.

Palmer is the poster boy in Chelsea’s young squad, the youngest team in the league, where the average age of the starting line-up is 23.1 years. After Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, as chairmen of a consortium of investors, took over the club in May 2022, the Blues bought an unprecedented 39 players for a total fee of 1.4 billion euros. The commitments of the many talents seemed like tickets for the future – and Palmer is now actually developing into a jackpot for Chelsea. After one of his goals on Saturday, Eghbali held his finger to his mouth. The gesture seemed like a reaction to criticism of his transfer strategy. Chelsea recently extended Palmer’s long-term contract by two years until 2033 – he would then be 31.

Palmer’s father was the first to discover Palmer’s talent; he encouraged him as a child and taught him the basic technical principles of the game. Palmer said his father was like a “Pep” to him during his training – a reference to Manchester City coach Josep “Pep” Guardiola, who gave him his professional debut in the League Cup in September 2020 and shaped him from then on. As a seven-year-old, Palmer joined the club’s youth academy and from then on went through all of the junior teams. Because of the competitive situation at the Citizens with players like Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and compatriot Phil Foden, he was only used sporadically in three seasons. Ultimately, this resulted in 41 competitive games for the club – not enough for Palmer’s ambitions.

Chelsea paid 50 million euros for Palmer – he is now worth twice as much

After winning the title with England at the U-21 European Championship in the summer of 2023, where Palmer drew international attention, Chelsea advertised for his services. Actually, he just wanted to go on loan at the time to gain match practice. But Guardiola gave him a choice: “Either you stay or you will be sold,” Palmer told the Daily Mail. On the last day of the transfer window, the two clubs agreed on a move, the transfer fee was just under 50 million euros. The amount is now more like an inexpensive acquisition; Palmer’s market value has almost doubled.

Chelsea’s coach recently praised Palmer’s character. He is a modest boy who has not been changed by his successes; He still behaves the same way he did many years ago, said Maresca. At the 2024 European Championships, when Palmer scored in England’s final defeat against Spain, he wore shoes that featured not only the English flag but also that of the Caribbean state of St. Kitts and Nevis. His paternal grandfather once emigrated from there to England. A reggae song he dances also reminds us of his origins. The clip was well received on the Internet.

Cole Palmer certainly has the potential to become another star in English football. He was annoyed that he should have scored “five or six goals” against Brighton. No player has ever managed six goals in one game in the Premier League.