Minute 71, February 14, Amex Stadium.
With Christopher Nkunku dropping deep to receive the ball, Cole Palmer, thanks to Reece James pushing into midfield, escapes the clutches of Carlos Baleba, Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood — a situation that rarely came about in the 70 minutes before that — to find space.
Nkunku chooses to pass sideways to Enzo Fernandez, drawing a frustrated reaction from Palmer.
Fernandez could not escape Yankuba Minteh’s press and passed back to Levi Colwill. Palmer, with shrugged shoulders, shot Nkunku a questioning look as the France international joined him up front.
These three snapshots, as well as several other moments of frustration peppered throughout Chelsea’s 3-0 loss at Brighton on Friday, summed up Palmer’s night. Not a lot is going his way now and Chelsea are not helping their best player.
It all looked rosy on December 15 when Chelsea won their fifth league match in succession, a 2-1 win over Brentford, to move into second in the Premier League, three points behind Liverpool. Palmer contributed three goals and two assists during that run.
Exactly two months since that result, Chelsea are clinging onto fourth place after a run of two wins in nine league games, during which Palmer has scored three times and assisted none.
The England international was due a slump given his exploits since joining Chelsea from Manchester City for £42.5million in 2023. Teams have begun man-marking him tightly this season, with Brighton using a combination of Mitoma and Baleba to slow him down two times in a week (they also beat Enzo Maresca’s side 2-1 six in the FA Cup six days earlier).
GO DEEPER
Maresca is in a dangerous moment
In these moments, Palmer must reinvent his game and receive more support from his team-mates. The league defeat at Brighton provided little evidence of either.
Maresca altered his line-up for this match, making Palmer his most advanced attacker and dropping Nkunku to a right-sided No 10 role in the first half. The idea seemed to be a bid for more fluidity in positional rotations between the two players while giving Palmer the opportunity to influence proceedings from a central position.
In the fifth minute, the vision was clear. Colwill plays a line-breaking pass to Palmer, who drops deep to pull Jan Paul van Hecke out of Brighton’s back line.
Palmer lays it off for Caicedo to find Nkunku, who runs beyond the back line, with a pass over the top. Caicedo’s pass is blocked but Chelsea finally seem ready to utilise runs beyond Brighton’s high line as a strategy — something they did not do in their earlier meeting and often struggle to do in Nicolas Jackson’s absence. Jackson is expected to miss the next six to eight weeks with a hamstring injury.
The concerns for Chelsea arose when Brighton tweaked their approach. Van Hecke was given the license to push ahead to press Palmer, with Joel Veltman drifting into a central area and Minteh playing as the right-back to tackle Pedro Neto. With Nkunku not making runs down the heart of the Brighton defence and preferring to stay closer to right-winger Noni Madueke, this allowed Brighton to limit Chelsea’s passes into Palmer. His 20 first-half touches were the third-fewest he has recorded in a half in the league this season.
When Palmer did get on the ball, he did not have much joy and the frustration began showing early on. In this transition from the 15th minute, Palmer receives in space and tries to feed Madueke, who initially runs towards the ball and has to change direction.
That allows Baleba to come across and nick the ball away, with Madueke withdrawing from a challenge. Palmer throws his arms up in frustration.
In the 18th minute, Madueke nearly made up for that by setting Palmer up following some neat link-up play with Nkunku. Palmer shoots wide with a curler.
Immediately after the miss, Fernandez, who is behind Palmer in a central position, remonstrates with the England international for not letting the ball run through to him. Palmer does not share his opinion.
Madueke went down with a hamstring problem during that sequence and was replaced by Jadon Sancho, with Neto moving over to the right wing. This hurt Chelsea’s balance further as Neto prefers to operate wider with his stronger right foot, while Sancho did not have the pace to trouble Minteh on the left.
Maresca adjusted by getting Malo Gusto to invert from right-back and moving Nkunku into the central role he had occupied in previous matches, with Palmer operating behind him. The issue with this, though, was that it forced Palmer into deeper positions, like in the sequence below from the 39th minute, with Nkunku playing with his back to goal.
This stopped any chances of Chelsea hurting Brighton with balls over the top of their centre-backs. It also caused more frustration as after Palmer passes to Caicedo, Fernandez, who has positioned himself between two defenders, turns away exasperatedly as Palmer acknowledges him with a raised hand.
Another sign of why this particular striker-No 10 partnership did not work came through four minutes later. Palmer and Nkunku play a one-two but have little chance of progressing play as Chelsea need two players to beat Brighton’s five-man back line, which also stopped following Palmer, as it did earlier in the game.
Nkunku and Palmer combined to have just three touches in Brighton’s penalty area and 12 in their own half in the first 45 minutes. They did not get in each other’s way but did not let each other flourish either.
The second half saw Chelsea continue to dominate possession with Brighton 2-0 (and later 3-0) up. Palmer was more actively involved, particularly with the arrival of substitute James, who occupied Brighton’s midfielders better than Gusto and played more line-breaking passes into him, like this one from the 83rd minute.
Unfortunately, Baleba and Mitoma, who paid close attention to Palmer throughout the second half, close him down to win the ball.
Despite his increased involvement, Palmer lost possession 12 times in the second half, his third-worst in a half of a Premier League game this season. As his touch map below shows, Chelsea needed him to drop deep and when he went forward, he did not have much to work with.
Questioned after the game about Palmer’s frustrated reactions on the pitch, Maresca put it down to “desire” and the unhappiness that accompanies losing games, but there is a tactical angle the Chelsea manager needs to rectify.
It was roughly this time last year when Palmer went through an extended lean patch, failing to score in six games across the league, FA Cup and Carabao Cup final. He rebounded by scoring from his favoured right half-space on the edge of the box after collecting a pass from Fernandez, who was on the receiving end of Palmer’s frustration at Brighton multiple times, in a 3-2 league win over Newcastle United.
Palmer and Chelsea desperately need something similar when they visit Aston Villa next weekend.
(Top photo: Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
