I have to put my Chelsea hat back on today.

Literally. As I write this column, I’m wearing a royal blue Chelsea F.C. ball cap my cousin gifted me for Christmas. I’m wearing it because I can’t even pretend to be impartial here.

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However, Cole Palmer is the only thing I’ve enjoyed about Chelsea’s (men’s) 2023-24 season.

For a club used to competing for Premier League and Champions League titles, lingering in mid-table for consecutive seasons while a bunch of absurdly expensive signings flounder has created an excruciating fan experience. 

Ukrainian winger Mykhailo Mudryk (who cost Chelsea up to $108 million) looks more like a Jadon Sancho-esque flop than Mauricio Pochettino’s next Heung-Min Son. Moisés Caicedo ($146 million) doesn’t look like he knows what the coaches want him to do on the pitch, and Nicolas Jackson ($38 million) — who I still have high hopes for — already has a horrendous missed shots compilation to match Fernando Torres’ time in West London. 

But one player has already justified his price tag, at least in this high-spending new Premier League era. Cole Palmer, who joined Chelsea this summer from Manchester City for a relatively reasonable $52 million, leads his team in goals and assists at just 21 years old. 

Chelsea possesses one of England’s premier academies, and when it comes to signing young players, the club focuses on international talent, since the quality of English players in Chelsea’s youth ranks is so high.

So it speaks volumes of Palmer’s precociousness that Chelsea felt compelled to spend double digits on a young English player who had only made three Premier League starts up in Manchester.  

Solely based on his lack of experience, it was a risk for Pochettino to make Palmer a consistent starter. The risk has paid off — and then some. 

As stated, Palmer has a team-high 16 goal contributions — goals plus assists — ranking sixth among all Premier League players. Admittedly, Palmer does take penalties for Chelsea, of which he’s scored five, so when you remove that from his tally — since set pieces are a separate skill from creating goals from open play — his numbers look a bit less impressive. 

But there’s a flip side of that coin. Of all the players in the squad who could take penalties, including four-time league champion Raheem Sterling and World Cup 2022 Best Young Player of the Tournament Enzo Fernandez, the coaching staff picked Palmer. He hardly had any top-level experience, yet his quality and maturity just shone through. 

So, what does Palmer do so well? On the attacking end, almost everything. 

As much as I love to discuss advanced passing and dribbling metrics in this column, the good ol’ fashioned end product has no replacement; when Palmer touches the ball, it ends up in the back of the net frequently, either by his boot or a player he passed it to. His 0.61 expected non-penalty goals plus assists per 90 minutes played ranks him in the 90th percentile among all winger-attacking midfield hybrids in Europe’s top five leagues, per FBref — the best of the best. 

He’s not experiencing a hot streak and overperforming his numbers, either. His 10.4 total non-penalty expected goals plus assists created so far this season in the Premier League sits almost exactly in line with his 11 goal contributions minus penalties. In fact, Chelsea as a team has underperformed their total expected goals by about seven goals  — 41 real goals to 48.11, according to Understat. So, at the least, Palmer has produced goals at a more efficient rate than the rest of his team, and if Chelsea had more exceptional finishers, he might’ve had another assist or two.

Even before the final third, Palmer displays exceptional passing range, accuracy and efficacy. He completes 6.3 progressive passes per 90, defined as any pass that moves the ball 10 yards forward (excluding a team’s defensive half) or into the penalty area. He attempts about 50 total passes per match. So, doing some basic math here, over 10% of Palmer’s total passes qualify as progressive. 

Compare that ratio to others listed in Palmer’s “Similar Players” section on FBref. Phil Foden of Manchester City’s ratio is 9.4%. Bayer Leverkusen’s Jonas Hofmann, whose team leads the Bundesliga, sits at 7.7%. 

The point of all these numbers and jargon? Palmer belongs at the top and is here to stay. 

If Chelsea continues to languish below the Champions League places, he won’t stay in West London long; he deserves to play in Europe’s premier competition.

And he’ll most likely play in Europe’s top international tournament this summer: EURO 2024, set to take place in Germany from June to July. Palmer made his England debut in November and as long as he maintains form, he should “be on the plane” this summer.

Jack Hallinan is a junior writing about the top wunderkinds in men’s and women’s soccer in his column, “Rising Ballers,” which runs every other Thursday. He is also the Talkin’ Troy Podcast Editor at the Daily Trojan.