We still have to wait and see how long Cole Palmer is out for as we need to wait for him to get his scan, so we don’t know how long he will be out for yet.
But the point of this article for now at least, is to just say that although not having Cole Palmer in our team would never be ideal, we can cope.
Enzo Maresca wanted to prioritise improving his attack this summer, and Chelsea have added more players to the squad this season who can do the Cole Palmer job. It’s no longer all on his shoulders. Of course there is not one single part of me that wants to play without Cole Palmer, and it would very much concern me if we even have to play one game without him, because he is that good. But Chelsea can be OK without Palmer if we have to be, and I’d be even more confident on that if we managed to sign Xavi Simons this week.
Palmer is class and we all know how important he is for Chelsea. But it’s also as equally as important that we don’t become and stay dependent on one player in this squad and that is what they have tried to address this window. We cannot just be Cole Palmer FC like we have done before.
Paul Merson has been speaking on this recently and I covered his quotes in an article last week. But I am hoping that Chelsea can prove him wrong on this one, as it’s so important to not be a one man team.
Go get Simons done and I think we’ll be fine in those creative areas at least. As you know, my concerns are at the back in the goalkeeper and centre back positions.
Is Piero Hincapie the answer at centre back? I really don’t know. He’s a good player, but is he the perfect profile we need? I don’t know. Anyway, I still think it’s unlikely that we bring a centre back due to those UEFA restrictions on us.
