Cole Palmer

In that system, you need that, because you're gonna ex- be exposed.

The likes of Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Jota, they're not gonna defend as much.

By the way, we do not want them to track all the way back to defend, because their job is to defend at the halfway line, and when the ball gets to them-

Oof

Because the way they're playing, Morgan Rogers has just come into the football club and has just slot in.

R- he just slot in perfectly well.

The way he's playing with Cole Palmer, like I said, both of them look absolutely happy.

There's nothing better than when you see your star players happy, enjoying the way they play.

...the left half a little wanting.

Um, I, I also agree with you both that it-- the one team, if they can get themselves together defensively, Martínez and how that will be Chelsea just because of the synergy between Morgan Rogers and, um, Cole Palmer.

I mean, when we recorded the week last week, uh, you, you said, "Oh, Chelsea are two-nil down to Leeds here.

They could be out the cup." And I said to you-

I have to say, he's very close to making the top five ranking.

But of course, he's behind these two guys who haven't made the top five, which people will be like, "What? How have they not made it?" Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer are, like, six and seven basically for how this season's going.

Look, they've both been great, and I, uh, it's very difficult to say that there are any flaws in their game.

There aren't really flaws.

There's another Chelsea player we'll talk about in the top five.

Morgan Rogers I would actually have above Cole Palmer because of how well he's doing at living up to his price tag.

It w- it's such a hard thing to do as an attacker.

We've, we've seen so many players struggle with it, and Morgan Rogers has really taken it in his stride.

Can you say that his career is going to go in the right direction? I don't know at this moment in time.

Esteval, very, very talented player, already taught that he may look to leave in January because he's now got Cole Palmer and Morgan Rodgers and Jao Pedro ahead of him in the pecking order up front.

Is that the best use of time? Aaron Alcimino was out of Borussia Dortmund.

Chelsea brought him back from a successful loan and didn't play him at all.

The discussion probably starts and ends with, well, no, he's our best player and we know this is the best role for him.

But it doesn't escape me that we're in a position where Cole Palmer will almost certainly come back into this squad and Cole Palmer's only route to minutes for England is either as a number 10 where he'd like to play or off the right where he probably wouldn't like to play and where I don't think Tuchel likes him to play.

But his route to playing minutes for England as a number 10 are basically close to zero because Belliam doesn't really come off and he's the nailed on starter.

So we're clamoring for guys who the reality is may well not actually have a proper path for minutes.

So those two are going to be in the squad.

You're 99.9% certain of that.

The big question for the number 10 slot is Cole Palmer.

Does he come back in? He was obviously a headline omission in the summer.

I, I know Morgan Rogers has hit the ground running.

Cole Palmer looks...

Not would you say he's back to his best, I guess I'll ask you that as well, but, um, Joao Pedro is another one that's been in the goals.

All three of them fit and firing.

Like, he's obviously quite big.

Um, he's someone that I think can make runs in behind and that's something I think Palmer's been missing a little bit.

And, um, I think the main thing with Cole Palmer is the fact that he has been dealing with a groin injury for the last year or so, and it's-- groin injuries are those ones where you can't get surgery for them, you just have to play through them until they feel better.

And he's saying finally now that he feels better.

0.66 XGI per 90 is phenomenal for the price point.

In fact, right now, it's beating Cole Palmer, his teammate, for the non-penalty XGI per 90.

And of course, he's 2 million cheaper.

I'm seeing no real reason to rush him out.

He gets good minutes.

He's in a team that are firing on all cylinders, at least at the top end of the pitch, and he's very much involved in everything positive Chelsea do right now.

They will share goals around between Joao Pedro, Cole Palmer, and Rogers, but I think there's enough there to be shared around and still make Rogers good value for money.

If I was looking at making a change in this kind of price point, and I really wanted to go on the aggressive side, I think Gibbs-White is the standout option this week.

But he actually played in the right wing this time.

And then Rodgers on the left and Cole Palmer in the 10 and Joe Pitter up top.

I thought it was a strong lineup.

It's a lineup that you should be able to beat a newly promoted side.

It was good.

Cole Palmer was... underwhelming with a 10 like you'll take it but in a game against Hull you probably were hoping for a whole lot more if you did have the VC on him Isak was poor as well we'll talk about him because yeah I mentioned last week on the pod that I thought he was more of a seller than a buy and it's funny to see him now being traded out with a pretty good matchup this week so we'll talk about that Erling Haaland had the captaincy death taxes and a goal from him 13 points for 26 as a captain A bench that was to be less than desirable.

I mean, Dedic with a minus two, O'Reilly with a zero, Visser with a four.

In hindsight, should have played Visser over Foden.

I think it matters.

I think five midfielders is definitely the place to go.

But after a month of EPL football, the team this season looks like David Rea, Jadon Bogle, Yosko Gavadio, James Tarkovsky, Maxime de Kuyper, Bruno Fernandes, Pascal Gross, Kevin Scharder, Marcus Tavernier, Cole Palmer, and Jao Pedro.

No surprise to see Rea there.