It’s remarkable to think those were Palmer’s first two assists of what has been a difficult season so far.<\/p>\n
His 45\u2011minute display was a reminder of his creative, match\u2011winning ability, which has rarely been seen this campaign.<\/p>\n
A recurring groin issue from the beginning of last season forced him to miss more than half of Chelsea’s matches, before a separate thigh injury kept him out for a further two games.<\/p>\n
Against the backdrop of his fitness concerns, Palmer has been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United \u2014 claims Chelsea manager Liam Rosenior has repeatedly denied.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, his England hopes have been dwindling amid fierce competition for the No.10 role, with Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Morgan Rogers currently appearing ahead of him in Thomas Tuchel’s pecking order.<\/p>\n
Yet Palmer’s cameo arrived in timely fashion to remind English football of his worth, underline his commitment to Chelsea’s cause and put himself back in the headlines.<\/p>\n
His precise passing released Joao Pedro to strike powerfully for the equaliser, while his second assist owed much to his awareness in finding space when linking up with fellow midfielder Enzo Fernandez, before playing the Brazilian through to score again.<\/p>\n
Rosenior admitted the decision to start with Palmer on the bench was partly because of fitness and partly to ensure he impacted the game late on.<\/p>\n
“It was a combination of both,” he said. “There was no way Cole could have started and played 60, 70, 80 minutes. I knew Napoli had injury problems and felt we would get stronger over time in the game. <\/p>\n
“We need to look after him and the way he has managed himself in the last two weeks was magnificent and we hope we can see him fully fit.<\/p>\n
“He is a world class player, there has been a lot of talk around Cole but he was a very happy man in the dressing room. It’s was scary good.”<\/p>\n
For the manager victory was also a fifth win in six matches since replacing Enzo Maresca after the Italian’s falling out with the hierarchy. <\/p>\n
However, on this occasion, the new English manager arguably would not have kept that run going without Palmer’s influence, with Chelsea changing the poor mood since December and battling it out in four competitions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s remarkable to think those were Palmer’s first two assists of what has been a difficult season so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-440127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}