There are many brilliant young, English players at the moment, especially in the final third of the pitch. Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham are all world-class footballers – or certainly very close to being so – and all three are ranked among the six most valuable players in the sport at the moment.
Three Lions boss, Lee Carsley, spoke recently about how other international managers almost view England’s depth in those areas as a problem: how do you accommodate so many magnificent players? And yet there is a growing feeling that the best of the bunch may actually be the player currently reckoned to be the 22nd most valuable in world football.
According to Transfermarkt, Cole Palmer is worth €90m, though good luck to any club trying to prise him away from Chelsea for that sort of sum. His perceived value has more or less trebled in the last year though and if he keeps performing how he is, he could easily reach a value similar to England’s other star attackers. Palmer was sensational last season for Chelsea and this term, somehow, he has been even better.
Perfect Palmer Nets Four… Again
Palmer scored 25 times in 45 games in all competitions last term and added an incredible number of assists as well, with 11 in the Premier League alone. This season he has taken things up a level and has notched six goals in his opening six league games, throwing in four assists as well. Ten goal involvements from six Premier League matches is a Ronaldo/Messi-esque sort of return and it is easy to see why his value has soared.
His recent display against Brighton, on the 28th of September, 2024, really caught the eye as he scored four goals. He could easily have had more too, seeing one effort disallowed and also hitting the woodwork. His all-round performance was magnificent though and his goals included a little bit of everything, one coming from a wonderful free kick, another from the penalty spot, and a further two neat finishes. This was the first time in history that a player had scored four goals in the first half of a Premier League game, and there is little doubt that the former Man City man will break many more records in the years ahead.
Second Time Palmer Hit Four Goals in a Match
Though he had played just 53 times for the Blues at the time, this was the second time he had hit four goals in a match. He first did so at the end of last season in a 6-0 rout against Everton and that included a perfect hat-trick, with his first three goals, all inside the opening half hour, scored with his left foot, then a header, then his right foot. His fourth was a left-footed penalty in the second half.
There has been so much talk about the incredible scoring feats of Erling Haaland, and rightly so. Palmer is not at that sort of level in terms of output but then he is not an out-and-out striker, he is not playing in a wildly successful side and he is younger and less experienced than the Norwegian. But even so, Palmer’s stats are really starting to look quite impressive.
His four-goal salvo against Brighton took him to three Premier League career hat-tricks already. That is just one fewer than Mo Salah has and more than the two managed by Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes and Eden Hazard. He is now level with Cristiano Ronaldo, Jamie Vardy, Robbie Keane and a host of other great footballers. Including, as we shall see, another Chelsea star.
Palmer Tops Chelsea Hat-Trick List
At the age of just 22, and having played a mere 39 league games for the Stamford Bridge outfit, the former Man City man has as many Premier League trebles as any player in the club’s history. Haaland’s hat-trick stats are on another level, with the Leeds-born colossus boasting eight already, from just 72 games. That equates to one every nine games, compared to one every 13 for Palmer.
However, when we compare the Chelsea star to the club’s other top Premier League hat-trick hitters, we see just how incredibly well Palmer has performed in his short time in west London. All the players who have scored multiple Premier League trebles for Chelsea can be seen in the table below.
Chelsea’s Hat-Trick Hitters
| Player | Hat-Tricks | Games Played | Minutes Played | Minutes Per Hat-Trick |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Palmer | 3 | 39 | 3,125 | 1,042 |
| Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink | 3 | 136 | 10,370 | 3,457 |
| Didier Drogba | 3 | 254 | 17,561 | 5,854 |
| Frank Lampard | 3 | 429 | 35,921 | 11,974 |
| Eden Hazard | 2 | 245 | 19,470 | 9,735 |
Note that stats are correct as of 4 October 2024
The table above really does illustrate just how prolific the man from Manchester has been in terms of hat-tricks (including the times he has hit four goals as well). He is hammering home Premier League triples in less than a third of the number of minutes needed by the next-best on the list.
Drogba
People are very aware of just how good Drogba was and he is a true Chelsea legend and a real star of the José Mourinho era(s). The Ivorian also produced the goods on the biggest occasions, with a sensational record in finals. However, many, even staunch Blues, forget just how good Hasselbaink was during his time at Stamford Bridge.
Hasselbaink
The Dutch striker’s only silverware with Chelsea was the 2000 Charity Shield, however, he won the Premier League Golden Boot with the club in 2000/01. In fact, Hasselbaink is one of a select number of players to have won that award more than once, having also been top scorer with his previous club Leeds in 1998/99 (when he also made the joint-highest number of assists).
Hasselbaink was some player and he operated as a “true” striker. Palmer, in contrast, has generally operated for Chelsea as a number 10, or from the right. He is in some senses more of an attacking midfielder and yet his stats are that of an elite goal-getter. We expect him to improve too, as the club does, and he will surely own the record outright for Chelsea hat-tricks in the Premier League very soon.