Cole Palmer can seem like the missing link for England, the footballer who can give them something they are lacking. And as Gareth Southgate’s side still miss a left-footer who can play left-back, who is capable of contributing in the final third, there came an unexpected revelation. “My first position was left-back,” he said. Sensing a sudden excitement among his audience, the Chelsea winger was quick to add: “I am talking Under-10s. Under-10s! I have never played left-back since. I was tiny and I just got put left-back. Then when I was 12 I moved further and further up.”
But Palmer’s has been a career of unconventional moves, where he has been reinvented to ever greater effect. When he left Manchester City for Chelsea, he was not expecting a return of 22 goals and 11 assists in the Premier League alone. The man who turned Pep Guardiola down has been turned into a cause celebre, the player many want to add excitement to an uninspired international team.
Like many an England international of the recent past, he owes a debt of gratitude to Mauricio Pochettino, who oversaw his transition from City substitute to Footballer of the Year candidate. “When he left I was gutted,” Palmer said. “A different manager might not have given me that freedom and opportunity to do what I did at Chelsea.” But he has been reunited with another who has already had a catalytic impact on his career.
“I had Enzo [Maresca] at City Under-21s for a season and then he went to Parma,” he said. “Then when I went up with Pep [to the first team] he came back as Pep’s assistant.”
Palmer had been a striker at the age of 15, then dropped deeper. But, he said: “Enzo was the one who put me at right wing. So from the 18s I was playing 10 and when I went to the 23s, Enzo played me on the right. When I was young, I was meant to play in that Papa John’s [Trophy] and they thought, I'd have a better chance on the wing than the middle, so they played me in there and that was the season it started really.”
If Raheem Sterling has proved the mentor he upstaged after they were reunited at Chelsea, his role model on the right was another City winger. “I had [Riyad] Mahrez with me there for years.” He learnt “everything” from the Algerian: which foot to use to control the ball, when to cut inside, when to dribble. “I used to watch his clips on YouTube the night before a game,” he said.
Now he is the footballer being copied: Chelsea’s new signings Estevao Willian and Kendry Paez have done their versions of his “shiver” celebration. Even if his former City teammate Morgan Rogers did it first, now Palmer has appropriated it. He has been so prolific it has become indelibly associated with him. And the Palmer shrug is the source of many a meme; it epitomises his nonplussed attitude. He has a Mancunian unwillingness to get carried away. His verdict on Pochettino calling Chelsea “Cole Palmer FC”? “I don’t know.”
He is monosyllabic at times, but his deadpan delivery can make Palmer funny. The differences he has noted between living in the south, compared to the north: “The people are moody in London, aren’t they?”
His first tournament memory of watching England came in the 2010 World Cup. But he surprised with a revelation: he went to the 2014 World Cup. Not, it transpired, to watch England. “By the time I got there they'd already been knocked out,” he said, with a bluntness that raised a laugh. “I went to watch Belgium versus Russia. I think it was the Maracana. It was great. My grandad lived in Rio.”
A decade on, England have already gone further than the side of 2014. Palmer has only got 19 minutes so far, his introduction to the tournament delayed until an encouraging cameo against Slovenia. It may give him a chance to start against Slovakia on Sunday. He is ready: “Personally, I think so but it's not up to me.”
An alternative scenario is that Palmer is deployed late on, brought on to show his superpower. He has taken 10 spotkicks this season, nine for Chelsea and one for England. He has scored all. There are two potential penalty specialists to bring on: Ivan Toney and Palmer. They have discussed the scenario. “I was speaking about this the other day with Ivan,” Palmer said.
So would he be willing to come on in the 119th minute, when his first touch could decide England’s destiny? The answer was typically Palmer: brief, to the point and showing his self-confidence. “Yeah, I’d come on and take one.”
