SPOTLIGHT
The rise of Chelsea’s ice-cold attacking superstar
It’s becoming a common sight in the Premier League: Cole Palmer celebrating yet another goal for Chelsea by rubbing his upper arms, as if caught coatless in a sudden cold snap. Yet the young forward is not uncomfortable; rather, he wants the world to know he has ice in his veins. Indeed, given how frequently he is scoring and how freely he has breezed through opposition backlines since his £40 million summer move from Manchester City, the mere appearance of his name on matchday teamsheets is enough to send a chill down the spine of any defender.
Leaving his hometown club could not have been an easy decision for the 21-year-old from Wythenshawe, especially as it meant swapping the most dominant side in Europe for a team in the midst of a rebuild. But at Stamford Bridge, Palmer has found a broader platform upon which to showcase his skills – by March,he had already more than tripled his total career Premier League minutes and scored twice as many goals in all competitions as he ever did for City.
And as the spotlight has trained more intently on him, Palmer’s personality has come to the fore. The languid swagger with which he plays and the insouciant I’m-too-cold celebration evince a calm and deeply entrenched self-confidence; a self-belief calcified by a life of striving – and succeeding – to prove people wrong.
“I think his self-belief has grown,” says Terry John, the former head of youth recruitment at City. “He was small and slight when he was young. These players, they’ve all got that confidence and belief, and it was always there for Cole, but I think it grows as their body grows and as they mature.”
It’s hard to believe now, as Palmer stands a sturdy 6ft 2ins, but his first battle against how he was perceived by others was related to his size.
He joined City at eight years old and was one of the smallest players throughout the club’s younger age groups. Team-mates and opponents were taller, faster and stronger, so Palmer had to stand out in other ways. “At nine, ten, 11, he was tiny,” says Scott Sellars, who was City’s academy manager in Palmer’s early years with the club. “But he could always – like he does now – drop a shoulder very quickly and go past people.
“He had the technical ability and the decision-making, he just had no physicality. I remember going to a tournament in Germany when he was about ten years old. He really stood out. He would float past three, four, five players at times.
“He always had an inner confidence. He was quiet, but he had a big belief. You could see it in his ability. That was a strength of his. Things didn’t seem to worry him too much. He’d get the ball and, if he didn’t beat somebody, it was like, ‘It’s OK, I�
