Chelsea’s new ace Cole Palmer 22 is showing a remarkable upturn at the end of this season. He has scored as many as four goals in a single game, tying for the top scorer. However, critics point out that Chelsea has low purity due to its large number of penalty kick goals.
At a home game against Everton in the 33rd round of the 2023-2024 English Premier League EPL held at Stamford Bridge in the U.K. on Sunday, Chelsea won a landslide 6-0 victory. Chelsea, ranking ninth with a clean sheet win in 14 matches, raced to remain undefeated in eight consecutive EPL matches.
Palmer was the hero of the match. Palmer set a left foot first goal in the 13th minute of the first half and scored three goals in the 29th minute of the first half, completing his hat trick. Palmer added a penalty kick in the second half, and scored four goals in the match alone. The latest Chelsea player to score four goals in a match before Palmer was Frank Lampard in 2010.
With four goals on the day, Palmer has 20 goals and nine assists in this season’s league. He is tied with Manchester City’s Erling Holan for first place in scoring. He is tied for fourth place with Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur, only one assist away from 10 assists in the group that tied for first place including Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa.
Palmer tied for first with Watkins in the EPL offensive point category, which combined scoring and assist.
According to statistics media Opta, Palmer scored seven consecutive league goals at Stampede Bridge, the first ever Chelsea record.
Palmer, born in 2002 from Manchester City Youth, moved to Chelsea on September 1, 2023, when he could hardly afford many chances. He has been exploding since his first season at Chelsea. Palmer, a left-footed playmaker who moves between an attacking midfielder and a winger, is 189 centimeters tall and boasts quality ball control and ballkeeping. He has been creating goals and assistance through various plays between midfield and the strikers, including his ability to decide calmly and shoot in the mid-range. After achieving a hat-trick in the match against Manchester United on the 5th, he scored four goals in 11 days, continuing his tremendous goal streak this month to become the leading scorer.
Some point out that Palmer’s nine out of his 20 goals scored from penalty kicks, making his performance less innocent. However, many people highly value his performance as a dedicated penalty kicker for his team, which uses accurate kicks as its main weapon, and has never missed a single goal and succeeded in all of his goals.
In the match against Everton on the day, an ugly scene came from a penalty kick in the second half. When Palmer was about to take the ball and prepare for the penalty kick, winger Noni Madueke and one-top Nicola Jackson rushed in and expressed their will to kick each other. Captain Conor Gallagher stepped forward. Gallagher robbed the ball and induced the penalty kick, which exploded with a hat-trick on the day and handed it over to the original kicker Palmer, who had a good sense of goal.
Palmer calmly attempted a penalty after pushing Jackson away, and the shot completely deceived opposing goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and shook the net.
“I haven’t said anything in particular. All the players wanted to kick the penalty, but I am the one who decided to kick the penalty. In the end, I kicked the ball,” Palmer said after the match. “All the players tried to contribute to the victory. It’s not important.” 토토사이트
Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino said after the match, “It’s a shame. We shouldn’t behave this way. I told our players this is the last time we will tolerate this kind of behavior. The penalty kicker is Palmer. He said that if we want to be a team and win, we have to think for our team.”