Go back less than a year and Cole Palmer seemed destined for a loan. Instead, he is now heading for Euro 2024, perhaps the breakout star of the club season with a first international goal to his name as well. As Burnley and Brighton, two of the clubs who wanted to borrow him last summer, may reflect, much has changed since then. Chelsea’s player of the season, a man Manchester City may rue selling, has 28 goals, in the shirts of two clubs and now his country.
He has scored in the Premier League, the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup, the Community Shield, the European Super Cup and now for England. If the caveat that his maiden strike in his country’s colours was from the penalty spot, plenty of his goals are, but whatever the stage, they seem taken with nonchalant confidence.
