Xabi Alonso backs Cole Palmer to shine at Chelsea

Cole Palmer walks into this season with something he barely had last year: a fully functioning body and a clear head.

Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso is convinced the worst of the injury troubles that derailed the forward’s campaign are over — and that a very different Palmer is about to re-emerge.

“Cole is determined to enjoy his football,” Alonso said. “He wants to be fit. He wants to feel healthy. He wants to have a good connection with the players around him.

“I’ve said that if we have this Cole and we are able to reach him and he feels that flow in the game and that he connects well with the players, I’m sure that his level is top class, world class I would say, and that he will have a great season.”

From stalled season to fresh start

Last season never really got going for Palmer.

He played only 26 Premier League games, scoring 10 goals, a return that looks respectable on paper but fell short of the explosive standards of his first two years at Stamford Bridge. The numbers told part of the story; the way he moved told the rest.

A groin injury struck in August. He was pulled from the starting XI shortly before kick-off in Chelsea’s 5-1 win at West Ham, and his campaign never quite recovered.

From there, his league appearances before December could be counted on two hands — and then two fingers. Just two more outings in the Premier League until the winter, and when he did come back, he was clearly short of his usual sharpness.

At times, Palmer looked like he was playing with the handbrake on. Limited mobility, reduced burst, fewer creative sparks in the final third. Chelsea, already misfiring, felt it. They limped to a 10th-place finish, a long way from where a player of Palmer’s talent expects to operate.

Thomas Tuchel underlined the problem in March, explaining that Palmer still could not fully extend his groin after returning from the injury. It was a stark admission and a reminder of how far the player was from his peak.

The consequences went beyond Chelsea. Palmer missed out on Tuchel’s England squad for the World Cup, a brutal blow for a 24-year-old who had been tipped to be part of the national team’s next wave.

Yet that omission brought one unexpected benefit: a rare summer off. For the first time since 2022, Palmer had a close season without competitive football, a chance to reset his body and mind.

Alonso sees a different Palmer

Now Alonso believes that difficult chapter has done its job.

“Yes,” he said when asked if Palmer’s injury problems were behind him. “I think that sometimes you need to go through a difficult moment with an injury or whatever to learn from that.

“I think that Cole has gone through a difficult period with the injury, and now he’s working really hard to have the prevention not to have to feel those symptoms.

“Since the first day, he’s been working really hard to avoid that.”

This is the version of Palmer Alonso wants: fit, fearless, demanding the ball, stitching attacks together. The manager talks about “flow” and “connection”, about a player whose game lifts those around him. Chelsea’s season may depend on it.

New faces, new energy

Palmer’s revival is only one strand of a wider reset at Stamford Bridge.

When Chelsea walk out at Craven Cottage on Monday night for their opening Premier League game against Fulham, they are expected to unveil a handful of new signings. Maxence Lacroix, Morgan Rogers and Marco Palestra are all available and in line for debuts in a west London derby that should offer an early glimpse of Alonso’s blueprint.

Fresh legs, fresh ideas — and, if Alonso is right, a refreshed Cole Palmer ready to remind the league exactly why he was once talked about as world-class potential, not past tense.