Cole Palmer's form has me very worried

There was a period of last season where I thought Cole Palmer was the best performing player in the Premier League. I got some lovely hate comments from Arsenal and Liverpool fans over that, and I always enjoy getting feedback from our readers. Those haters can rejoice, because Palmer’s not looked nearly as impressive in this campaign.

In his starts since returning from injury, Palmer has been about a bang average attacking midfielder for a top-half side in the Premier League. He’s been able to juice the goal numbers with some penalties, but this has barely masked the rather extreme dropoff in his production.

His shot volume, in particular, has taken the biggest hit. But he’s not creating much for his teammates or advancing the ball from deeper areas either. It’s not like he’s being deployed in a much different way and doing different stuff. Palmer just isn’t producing, period.

Last season, Palmer was shooting from the edge of the box constantly, and converting those longer-range shots at a pretty incredible clip. While the rate he was scoring probably was never going to be sustainable, he clearly showed a well above average skill at them, and Palmer’s shooting threat from 18-25 yards opened up space for teammates in the box. This season, he’s just… not shooting.

While opponents have clearly done some work to take away shooting lanes from Palmer, the change in volume is pretty astonishing. Yes, the below graphic is over significantly more minutes than the above, making it a bit of an unfair comparison. But it’s shocking that he’s taking almost no shots from areas where he was letting it rip 2-3 times per game last season.

Notably, Palmer was also making runs into the box and getting on the end of through balls once in a while, scoring three times from those types of shots. He only has one shot (which he scored) of that variety since returning from injury in December.

You’d think that with his shot volume down, Palmer might have morphed into a bit of a playmaker, but he’s doing that less than last season as well. He has zero shot assists into the box from outside of it during this time period.

There are too many factors at play to pin this entirely on Palmer losing form and/or fitness. Joao Pedro and Liam Delap are worse strikers than Nicolas Jackson generally, and also two entirely different styles of striker. Chelsea changed managers in the middle of this spell. But Palmer individually playing much worse is clearly one significant factor in his lack of production.

I am, perhaps, setting myself up to look very stupid by posting this take ahead of a home match against Burnley, who Palmer might be able to score on with his eyes closed. But Chelsea’s two following matches are away to Arsenal and away to Aston Villa. They get slightly easier but still not cupcake fixtures at home vs. Newcastle and away to Everton, before playing the Manchester clubs back-to-back.

Chelsea are not getting through that set of matches still in a top 5 place if they don’t get some seriously improved play out of Palmer. The way things are going, I’d bet on the Blues to fall behind Liverpool, and for Palmer to fall out of the England squad for the World Cup.

That’s quite the sour note to end on. So for the Chelsea fans who are going to call me a bitter loser who just hates their club, here’s a little treat: Estevao is going to be one of the best players in the world very soon.

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