“The kind of player who can do things that no one expects,” Enzo Maresca said of Cole Palmer after this game. Still, pretty much the last thing anyone expected Palmer to do in mid-January was to go 18 games without a goal in all competitions.
Now, with the drought finally at an end courtesy of a late penalty against Liverpool in a 3-1 win for Chelsea, Maresca said that Palmer was “not happy” with his lack of goals in the last few months, and backed him to help the side “reach something important” in the crucial last few games of their season.
Chelsea are now all but certain to reach the Conference League final later this month, while also facing their Champions League rivals Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in the hunt for the top five. With this in mind Palmer’s return to the scoresheet could scarcely have been better timed, even if Maresca insisted that his level had not dropped in recent months.
“We saw Cole day by day in the training ground, and he was exactly the same way: scoring goals, happy, enjoying the session,” Maresca said. “Of course when he is not scoring goals he is not happy, because he wants to help the club reach something important. [Now] he is happy for sure, because we scored. But I didn’t see a different Cole from two months ago.
“I said before that if we want to finish top five, we need Cole and Nico [Jackson] to score. Now we have three more [league] games, and on Thursday the second leg [in Europe], and hopefully he can help us.”
Referencing his goal drought to Sky Sports afterwards, Palmer said: “Obviously shit happens. I went three months without scoring but it just gives me more motivation, more fight to do well, not just for myself but for the team.
“You know yourself social media is just full of idiots, trolls or whatever. I don’t pay no attention. To score today I’m happy. It’s only one and I’ve got to keep improving to try and reach my levels. For anyone not getting chances, not scoring, you’re letting your team down at the end of the day. I feel like I’m mentally strong anyway.”
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For Arne Slot, Liverpool’s defeat was a warning to his players of the standards that would be required in next season’s title defence. “The margins are small,” he said. “You slip twice, you concede two goals. We all have quality players. Chelsea and City and Arsenal and Villa have them. That’s why you have to work so hard every three days. If we have any chance of competing next season, we need to do that again.”
Maresca, meanwhile, paid tribute to the champions-elect. “Today showed the reason they won the Premier League,” he said. “We didn’t plan to defend deep. But sometimes the opposition team is so good you have to adapt.”
