How Cole Palmer’s Impact Transcends the Field-Opinion
Despite retiring from the game, former Chelsea player Glen Johnson has continued to be active in the sport by participating in interviews and discussing Premier League teams, particularly Chelsea.
Johnson, like the rest of us, has been blown away by his talk this week about Cole Palmer at Chelsea.
“Cole Palmer has been doing great,” Johnson said.
“He’s obviously got a great mentality stepping up for penalties and performing against his old team.
“He looks calm on the ball, looks like he’s enjoying his football and it’s good to see, I think he’s the real deal.”
However, Johnson questions the position of Palmer playing wide on the right, which is where he has mainly been used by Mauricio Pochettino so far.
“I prefer to see him in the middle, behind the striker,” Johnson continued.
“At the moment, I don’t think he’s quick or strong enough to be isolated one on one with defenders and is best receiving it on the half turn and being clever with his passes into strikers.
“He’s the sort of player strikers love to play with, but I don’t think that he’s the kind of player a full-back hates to play against one on one on.
“He’s intelligent and can play through the lines in the middle, and that’s where he should be used by Chelsea.”
Actually, I kind of agree with this, and I’ve talked about it on this blog a few times recently.
Palmer has been playing well for us on the right, but when he plays centrally, he always seems to be more at ease, more productive, and all around better.
The statement regarding a lack of strength is the only one with which I disagree. Palmer has, in my opinion, demonstrated that he can frequently hold a man off and has some decent strength on the ball.
I do concur with the rest, though. Palmer is not a winger who will sprint to the by-line and beat players quickly.
It’s interesting that when he was played on the left for England last week, he employed technique and cunning rather than pace to beat a man and cross the line. However, that only serves to reinforce my belief that he would be better off playing in the centre, where he could apply the same technique and intelligence.
I think his best chance of succeeding would be to get inside those half spacing pockets.
However, I believe that we will mostly employ him on the right, especially with Christopher Nkunku‘s return. And it’s not perfect, in my opinion.
Listen, Palmer is a fantastic player who can do well wherever on the pitch. However, I’m all for getting the most out of each and every player, and if we want to regularly achieve that with Palmer, I believe he has to be playing centrally, even though I don’t think he will.