Cole Palmer praises clever “gameplan” trick that Enzo Maresca used to create all 3 goals | OneFootball

When we saw the team sheet for last night’s Chelsea triumph over PSG in New York, we noted that Enzo Maresca had wheeled out one of his favourite new tricks.

An asymmetric formation which featured just one winger, with Cole Palmer starting wide on the other side and coming inside. It gets the best out of Palmer, helping him pick up the ball in space – especially against teams like PSG who push their full backs high up. Malo Gusto overlaps Palmer on the right to bring width, while Marc Cucurella inverts on the left to protect Neto’s more exposed flank.

As well as helping those players, it also makes the best use of our current squad, which has a lot more top talent in central and attacking midfield positions than out wide, where it’s basically only Neto who is in favour right now.

Cole Palmer hails his gaffer for tactical tweak

Cole Palmer lifts the Club World Cup trophy. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

It’s worked well before, but last night was the best example of it yet. All three of Chelsea’s goals came down the right, with Palmer grabbing two goals and an assist.

At full time, the attacker hailed his manager for the move:

“The gaffer put a great gameplan out. He knew where the space was going to be. He tried to free me up as much as possible and I just had to repay him and score some goals,” Palmer said to DAZN.

Maresca explains tactical shift that could be a fixture

Maresca himself also took a chance to explain how he had set things up:

“Today we found a position for him where there was more space to attack. Obviously Cole played really well but the effort from all the players was fantastic.”

With 3 strikers now on the books and Noni Madueke on the way out, we expect this to be repeated a lot more next season especially against top teams like PSG in the Champions League when we want an extra body in the middle.