In the 83rd minute, the ball rolled to the feet of Cole Palmer in a bubble of space outside Aston Villa’s box, and the crowd snapped to attention. Little conversations stopped. Heads craned forward in unison. Ah, now this is why we came.
Chelsea are a fun watch this season, full of speed and swagger, all nosed by the erratic offerings of Nicolas Jackson, a man who can finish with the accuracy of a sniper and all the delicacy of a caravan in the space of one afternoon. But there is a reason why the walk down Fulham Road carries such a sense of anticipation these days. Palmer virtually guarantees a handful of moments that take your breath away, one or two of which will probably lead to goals, performing touches and feints often so subtle that you’ll try and often fail to describe exactly what he just did.
This ground has enjoyed star attractions in the past, like Gianfranco Zola and Eden Hazard, players who could light up the most mundane game with a single dribble. Yet Palmer’s allure is different, and his best moments often come at a standstill, when the threat of what he might do sends defenders in the wrong direction more so than the action he eventually takes. And despite the excellence of Pedro Neto, despite the tenacity of Marc Cucurella, despite the madcap display of Jackson, it was Palmer they had come to see, like an entertainment product in his own right.
In a way, this was the perfect match for Palmer, against a team bold enough to come and play but not quite good enough to control the game. In the first half, Aston Villa played some kamikaze football in their own box, trying shudderingly dangerous passes back to Emi Martinez who was caught out on a couple of occasions.
The highlight of these mishaps was undoubtedly a pass-back, rarely awarded and universally cherished when it is. Martinez picked up the ball from the toes of his defender Pau Torres, about 10 yards out, and an entire stadium howled. Chelsea’s players clearly hadn’t prepared for this eventuality and entered into a deep discussion on how it should be executed, eventually deciding upon Palmer to be the ball striker after a lay-off by Enzo Fernandez. Villa’s entire team lined up on the goal line in a distinctly Sunday league-ish scene, and one of their flying body parts made the crucial block.
There were always going to be goals in a game between two teams who usually need multiple goals to win, who try to outscore their leaky defence’s concessions, like running the bath with the plug out. This was Chelsea’s first clean sheet at home all season, while Villa have now kept only one in their past 18 league matches, in a 0-0 home draw against Manchester United last month, conceding 34 goals at an average of nearly two a game.
Stamford Bridge had been a happy place for Villa fans in recent times, without defeat in their past three visits, and it would have been the perfect place to shut down any murmurings of discontent about a seven-game winless run stretching back to mid-October.
Yet they never really competed here. Chelsea were able to rest almost their entire team in midweek, thanks to Enzo Maresca’s approach of describing the Europa Conference League as “very important” while treating each game like a bi-weekly city break. The Champions League doesn’t afford such luxuries, as Unai Emery named largely the same team as Wednesday’s goalless draw with Juventus, and it showed in the early exchanges.
After seven minutes, Cucurella snapped into a tackle and surged into the Villa box with the ball, before crossing for Jackson to steer home with a precision that spectacularly deserted him for the rest of the match.
Palmer was on the periphery and perhaps in hindsight that was why Villa allowed him some room inside his sphere of influence, that pocket of doubt in the right half-space where none of his opponents – not centre-backs, not left-backs, not defensive midfielders – quite know who should take charge, despite them presumably having discussed this very scenario in great detail in Friday’s team meeting.
His ball to Fernandez for Chelsea’s second goal was exquisite, zipped hard and low with meaning, a pass that bounced up off the Argentine’s instep and demanded to be hit. He did, crisply finding the corner.
Some of Palmer’s other moments were underwhelming. A first-half shot trickled limply to the feet of Martinez. In the second half, he received the ball on the edge of the box and slipped a pass to nobody, before looking around as if to wonder why his teammates hadn’t telepathically received his instruction. Later, he raced through on goal for a one-on-one with Robin Olsen, a half-time replacement for the injured Martinez, but stalled and eventually hit a soft shot straight at the keeper.
But then it came. Palmer took the pass from his friend Noni Madueke on the right wing, and the nearest Villa defenders scrambled to action, knowing they were probably already too late. A touch to steady, another to shift it out of his feet, and as soon as his left boot wrapped through the ball, the net’s bulge felt inevitable.
Palmer grinned and ran and shivered and slid on his knees as his teammates swamped him. Chelsea fans grinned at each other. A moment later he was substituted to a standing ovation, and despite the handful of minutes remaining it felt like that was the game’s grand finale: thank you for coming to the Cole Palmer show, enjoy your evenings.
