Chelsea begin mission to resurrect Cole Palmer but star in race against time | OneFootball

Palmer endured a disappointing 2025 on an individual level but a collective plan is in place to get him back to his best

Palmer’s two-goal match-winning performance in July’s Club World Cup final trouncing of Paris Saint-Germain was a sensational solo display of his rare quality, but Maresca never did manage to get the best out of the Englishman.

Rosenior’s mission to resurrect the Palmer of 2023-24 under Mauricio Pochettino is now underway but faced a new obstacle this week with rumours of a move to Manchester United, the club Palmer supported as a child, spreading like wildfire after reports he is homesick in London, having grown up in Manchester and been bred in the academy of Manchester City.

That came amid the backdrop of Palmer’s last appearance for Chelsea, Saturday’s 2-0 win over Brentford, when he scored a penalty but did not celebrate it, and then went straight down the tunnel at full-time, staring at the turf, a picture of sweat and frustration.

Palmer is settled at Chelsea, Rosenior insisted, “very, very happy”, in fact, and a “huge part of our long-term plans”.

To that second point, how could he not be? Palmer has scored 48 goals and provided a further 29 assists in 110 games for Chelsea, whose outlay of, at most, £42.5million to sign him from Man City in 2023 was by a considerable distance the shrewdest money spent so far by Chelsea’s current ownership.

Moises Caicedo, for many, is the best defensive midfielder in the world, Reece James, for some, the best right-back, Estevao the most exciting teenaged prodigy in English football, yet it is Palmer who embodies the new Chelsea. He is their talisman, their greatest hope of getting back to the very summit of English football.

Cole Palmer cut a frustrated figure despite scoring on his last Chelsea appearance

Getty Images

But Palmer now finds himself in a situation not so different from Chelsea’s at large: pining for a return to the glory days. He has played a full 90 minutes only four times across all competitions this season, in a campaign totally disrupted by his recurring groin injury, not to mention his freak toe injury and this week’s thigh strain. His goal contributions, naturally, are well down.

He played under Thomas Tuchel for England only once, for 65 minutes, throughout 2025, which, aside from the Club World Cup final, was a disappointing calendar year on an individual level, complicated by injuries but also littered with subpar, un-Palmer-like displays.

Maresca always said there is no “sense” to Palmer’s groin injury, which is unnoticeable one day but flares up the next.

Rosenior insists “the reality” is that if Palmer “performs at his level”, he will “be in” once Tuchel names his final 26-man World Cup squad in May.

But the pertinent questions are whether injury complications will ultimately deny him those performances; whether those performances are achievable without him undergoing groin surgery; whether Rosenior will be the man to tease those performances out of Palmer.

“A fully fit Cole, I wouldn’t change him for any player in world football in his position,” Rosenior asserted. “My job is to support him. Not just me. The staff, the medical team, the players. To make sure he cannot feel frustrated.

“It’s good he [was] frustrated against Brentford, because he wants to do well for the club. But I don’t want him to feel like he has to push himself to the point of pain when we’re in January. That’s crazy.”

But, equally, so too is the thought of a 23-year-old player of Palmer’s quality never being able to rediscover the levels he reached two seasons ago. That, for Chelsea and their fanbase, is the greatest fear.

A fully fit Cole, I wouldn’t change him for any player in world football in his position

Liam Rosenior

Rosenior has pledged to “rotate the squad” and will “continue to do that because I want us to be involved in big games, in big competitions at the end of the season.”

The dilemma for Palmer is that the biggest competition of them all lies in wait at the end of the season — a World Cup where he can count Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers, Phil Foden, Eberechi Eze and Morgan Gibbs-White among his rivals for the coveted No10 shirt and a number of seats on the plane in that position far fewer than the number of deserving candidates.

For Tuchel, a welcome headache. For Palmer, just a headache.

“I’ve got no doubts at all that everything he wants in his career will come for him,” Rosenior said. “Our job in the short term is to get him into the place where he can go and enjoy himself on the pitch.”

Asked whether that place is currently far away, Rosenior replied: “That’s another hypothetical question.”

The intention is there. From Chelsea’s medical staff, to manage him responsibly. From Rosenior, to establish an environment in which he can thrive. From Tuchel, to give him a chance at a late race for the squad if fit and firing. From his team-mates, to help him back to the summit. And from Palmer himself, to get back to the player he was.

Now, can all those things come together? It is a race against time.