Chelsea have spent pretty much the entire season without Cole Palmer yet find themselves third and not massively far off table toppers Arsenal come mid-November.

It’s been a mixed bag so far this season, with stand out results against Liverpool and Spurs but also with massively disappointing results and performances against Sunderland and arguably Brighton.

It can also be noted that Chelsea are indeed just a couple points off mid-table, and with just one or two disappointing results, the current mood at the club could be flipped on its head in an instant. 

How have Chelsea coped so far without Cole Palmer?

I’d say the answer has probably got to be in the realms of ‘surprisingly well’.

We’re talking about the absence of, in the opinion of most people, one of the best players in the world.

Palmer is a creative workhorse and is a central piece of the Chelsea team, contributing towards the majority of chance creation and shots taken within the team.

Losing a player of this magnitude hurts every and any team. This is something I think a lot of Chelsea fans have forgotten about this season.

Palmer isn’t just any player, he’s the best player at Chelsea.

To still be top of the league in xG (though slightly skewed by top xG performances vs Spurs and vs Wolves), without your best creator and xG ‘miner’ is a massively respectable feat, regardless of your thoughts on the team. 

With all that said, this (to me) was relatively expected. Chelsea have an attack that, despite undergoing wholesale changes, is highly potent and if anything, is heavily underrated.

What’s even more exciting, is that this is a Chelsea attack still operating mostly this season without Liam Delap and Estevao.

With an end goal of Gittens, Joao Pedro, Palmer, Estevao and Liam Delap as Chelsea’s main attacking options, Chelsea should have a highly effective attack. 

Why Cole Palmer’s absence made losing Madueke and Jackson feel far worse than it actually was

xG. Shots. Doing things. Any really effective functioning attack has a nice balance across it.

Someone that’s going to retain the ball, someone that’s going to accumulate lots of xG, someone that’s going to take lots of shots (high xG or not) and someone that’s going to do things – dribbles, crosses, shots, runs.

If we look at Chelsea’s worst attacking performances of recent times, Chelsea had no Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson.

Whatever your thoughts on their quality, the three of them meet that criteria of attacking balance.

Madueke with the dribbles, shots and runs. Jackson with the dribbles, shots, xG and runs.

Palmer with the shots, xG and arguably dribbles and runs.

Sure, Noni was inconsistently effective at the things he did and sure, Jackson was an awful finisher, but they both were doing things that every attack needs done.

Without them, Chelsea would field teams of Sancho, Nkunku, Enzo Fernandez and Pedro Neto.

Of these players, none of them (bar Enzo Fernandez) really accumulate xG or take lots of shots. Neto is an ineffective runner off the ball and had no one to cross to, so didn’t.

Sancho is the ultimate ball retention winger and nothing much else and Nkunku just seemed like he couldn’t really be bothered to do the things he needed to do, for one reason or another.

This led to Chelsea’s worst attacking performances, creating less than 1xG on a few occasions.

Naturally, Joao Pedro is a moderate shot taker at best. At times, he will be a higher volume player, but on the whole, he isn’t going to get as much xG as Jackson or take as many shots. 

Pedro Neto himself at times feels like a massive nothing player, and Marc Guiu is still too inexperienced to truly influence games.

This mixed with a few criticisms of Chelsea’s shape in these games has resulted in us not having incredible chance creation but us having what I’d call a slightly ‘too vulnerable’ defence, costing us results in these games.

It’s arguably the defence that has emphasised the absence of Noni, Jackson and Palmer.

Whilst the context of being a slightly more transitional team last season is definitely valid, even if Chelsea were conceding 1/2  goals, they had the attacking thrust to just score more.

Though maybe the attack does slightly less now, I think the quality itself is just better – which has made up for the doing slightly less.

But these dodgy results, and at times the goals not flowing as freely as last season is what has contributed the most towards the remarks about Madueke and Jackson being poor sales and the new players being downgrades.

Fans are very quick to forget that when the goals had dried up last season, many were also asking for Noni and Jackson to be replaced. 

BUT the point, overall really, is that the quality is clearly there even if the profiles of these players do less compared to last season and adding the player that did the most last season and does the most to the quality we have, could really really propel us.

In addition, we’re also adding Delap, Estevao and Gittens.

All three, do more than the players we’ve played so far and will prove this as they settle in more and become cemented more as starters. 

So, will Palmer walk into the team and propel Chelsea into a title race?

I think it’s quite hard to tell. I don’t really feel as though the attack is the major flaw of the team anyway, and adding Palmer may just only propel the attack to greater heights.

For me, the thing that still differentiates Chelsea from other top teams like Arsenal is the injury situation at centre-back.

It’s been clear that when Badiashile and Fofana are fit and firing, and even when Josh is playing in a balanced defence, Chelsea are actually pretty solid in defence.

It’s just about keeping these players fit and playing consistently, to, in turn, be consistently solid defensively.

It’s that solidity that would propel Chelsea to greater heights, though, in theory if Chelsea’s attack is just so good we may be in a title race. 

The World Cup and Palmer’s long term fitness: My thoughts

If Palmer came back and stayed fit, I find it very hard to imagine Palmer not making the World Cup squad.

After seeing Morgan Rogers’s role, it almost fits Cole Palmer to a tee, and seeing Jude Bellingham seems out of favour with Thomas Tuchel, it’d take a miracle (or injury) for Palmer to not make it into the team in my opinion.

My main concern is Palmer’s injury in general. There are a variety of ‘groin injuries’ that are recurrent and impact players who play a lot of minutes, so the actual injury Palmer has is still unknown in a sense.

That being said, based off the information available, it sounds to me like Palmer has an adductor strain/tear, though I find the possibility of pubalgia or Osteitis Pubis also possible (though less likely).

Either way, the treatment plan is almost always rehab with an emphasis on rebuilding strength in his core/hips as well as his adductor.

This, alongside load management and gradual return to play whilst managing minutes even after his return, should be enough to get him fit again and hopefully avoid recurrence.

The only concern I have is that so much football is played these days, I find it hard to imagine Palmer not getting reinjured at some point this season which could negatively impact his hopes on making the World Cup squad as well as propelling Chelsea up another level.

But, given the lengthy time off, Chelsea have definitely been very cautious with him, making me a bit more confident he should be fine upon return. 

All we can really do is hope he stays fit and doesn’t reinjure himself, and that he shows what he can do on the global stage for both club and country this season.