“Enjoyment”
One word — accompanied by a beaming smile emoji — captioned the story posted on Cole Palmer’s official Instagram account earlier this month, commenting on a clip of his spectacularly impudent first of four goals in a 6-0 home win over Everton a year ago.
Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca alighted on a rather more sombre concept to describe Palmer’s contribution as Everton were beaten 1-0 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday: sacrifice.
“Nico (Jackson) finally found the goal today,” Maresca said. “Hopefully Cole soon can score goals. But I think Cole’s performance was very good. He sacrificed, he was pressing well. So it’s just a matter of time for all of them and for sure they’re going to help us.“
Palmer’s streak without a goal now extends to 17 matches across all competitions, and he has arguably never looked further from scoring than he did on Saturday. In 91 minutes on the pitch against Everton he had zero shots — only the fifth time that has happened in the 61 Premier League games he has started for Chelsea — and only one touch in the opposition penalty area.
The touch map above is consistent with a pure midfielder, which is a problem considering that Palmer has firmly established himself as Chelsea’s best finisher. His only notable run beyond Jackson on Saturday was picked out by a brilliant floated pass from Levi Colwill, before the ball was picked off by the recovering Jarrad Branthwaite after he chested it down.
Maresca had already responded to an increasingly popular narrative in his Friday press conference at Cobham by insisting that Palmer’s struggles are not the result of his tactics.
“The style of football we play is the same one,” he insisted. “The manager is the same one. The club is the same one. So nothing changes around Cole and Cole doesn’t change. It’s just mentally at this moment. For sure, you can see that he is a little worried because he wants to help the team.”
Mental or tactical? Evidence could be found in the Everton game to support both theories.
Palmer spent a large proportion of his time receiving and passing the ball too far from goal to threaten Jordan Pickford. But on the occasions when the ball did find him around the box, the cocky assurance that saw him nutmeg Branthwaite en route to scoring a 29-minute hat-trick in last season’s corresponding fixture was nowhere to be seen. At times he also appeared uncharacteristically hesitant to shoot.
At the heart of the current debate is Maresca’s insistence that Chelsea are playing the same way now as they were in December, when they climbed as high as second in the Premier League and placed themselves briefly in the title conversation. There are plenty of statistical indicators that suggest otherwise, not least the fact that the team’s fast break attacks have plummeted after a spike early in the Italian’s tenure:
During that period of relatively direct, transitional football, Maresca’s unease was palpable. He used his press conferences to stress the importance of Chelsea not becoming embroiled in “basketball games”, and it was common to see him ostentatiously applauding in his technical area when an attacker decided to abandon a counter-attack to consolidate possession, even as groans of disappointment rippled around Stamford Bridge.
Since then Maresca has succeeded in steering Chelsea matches away from the chaos that characterised much of Mauricio Pochettino’s season in charge — a trend underlined by the drop in the number of possessions per game:
Greater control in possession has significantly improved Chelsea’s defence, which descended to farcical depths at times last season, but the corresponding reduction in their attacking threat — punctuated by the first sustained slump of Palmer’s career at Stamford Bridge — has made ‘Marescaball’ an increasingly difficult sell to disgruntled supporters.
Maresca’s argument is that Chelsea have not changed; their opponents have. Nine of their 15 opponents in the Premier League since the turn of the year are in the bottom half of the table. Sitting back in a low block, often with a dreaded defensive “line of five”, has become the default game plan to stifle Palmer and his team-mates. Space in the final third cannot be attacked if it is not afforded, and speed is harder to generate against teams intent on slowing the play.
The true story of Chelsea’s season probably lies somewhere in the middle.
For more than an hour on Saturday, Maresca’s team did not allow Everton to fight them to a standstill and, helped greatly by the return of Romeo Lavia, passed forward quickly whenever a chance to do so presented itself. The winning goal was as direct as they come: a smart Trevoh Chalobah tackle on Beto on the halfway line, a first-time pass from Enzo Fernandez up into the feet of Jackson, a shot on the turn before the visitors could react or recover.
(Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
After the match, Everton manager David Moyes was honest enough to admit that Chelsea being “fast, intense, quick” was the biggest reason why his team struggled to compete in the opening 45 minutes. The home side’s approach imbued Stamford Bridge with positive energy on a day in which it could easily have become a cauldron of discontent.
But despite showing greater endeavour, Maresca’s team still only generated 0.98 expected goals (xG) according to Opta — their fifth-worst attacking performance in the Premier League this season by that metric. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the key to unlocking a greater level of attacking threat is unleashing Palmer.
Only one of Palmer’s 10 open play goals this season was scored against a settled defence: his brilliant 83rd-minute curler to cap a 3-0 victory over Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge on December 1. The other nine were all converted in more dynamic situations, either at the end of direct attacks, pure counter-attacks or quickly following ball recoveries high up the pitch.
The positive aspect of Chelsea’s daunting Premier League run-in is that they should face more high presses than low blocks. But if Maresca is to secure the top-five finish that will bring Champions League football back to Stamford Bridge next season, he will likely need to find a way to help Palmer play with more enjoyment and less sacrifice.
(Header photo: Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)