WITH the European Championship on the horizon, it was inevitable that players would be fighting tooth and nail to make the cut for Gareth Southgate’s England squad.
Then there’s Cole Palmer.
The Chelsea forward is having an unbelievable debut season at Stamford Bridge, following his move from Manchester City at the start of the season.
Palmer netted four goals during Chelsea’s thumping 6-0 win over Everton a week ago, having earlier bagged a hat-trick against Manchester United.
The 21-year-old now has an incredible 25 goals and 13 assists from 42 appearances across all competitions this season.
Palmer’s electric form has certainly caught the eye of England manager Southgate, who has included the midfielder in his last three senior squads.
However, Palmer remains lower down the pecking order for a starting role, with competition from the likes of Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and James Maddison.
As a result, he did not feature in either of the March friendlies against Brazil and Belgium (missing against the former due to injury); earning his two senior caps during the qualifying campaign in November (a combined 35 minutes against Malta and North Macedonia).
Nevertheless, despite drawing a seemingly rare blank against Manchester City at the weekend, Palmer’s recent form is sure to guarantee him a place in Southgate’s Euro 2024 squad.
Southgate evidently has his favourites, but he simply has to recognise good form and influence, and Palmer clearly has that in abundance.
Perhaps the one concern over his form, however, is that he is performing much better at home than away.
Palmer has scored (and/or assisted) in each of his last seven Premier League fixtures at Stamford Bridge; while his last away goal came in the win over Luton at the end of December.
He has been a more consistent provider than goalscorer in games away from home, with four assists across the six away games in the league since the new year.
The would potentially suggest that Palmer would draw another goalscoring blank in their upcoming Premier League clash with league leaders Arsenal on Tuesday.
Essentially though, it’s no real concern. We’ll talk about it until it’s no longer a thing. If he scores against Arsenal (penalty-spot or otherwise) – and Chelsea will probably need him to – it inevitably won’t be brought up again.
Anyway, back to the Euros.
Securing a spot on the plane is only the first hurdle.
Fans dreaming of European glory will no doubt be searching for a way to shoe-horn all of Foden, Bellingham, Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane into an England starting XI.
Tactically, would it even be possible? At least without opening ourselves up even more defensively than we perhaps already are?
And which of the three would you sacrifice to play in a deeper role in central-midfield?
People can easily sit there and say something along the lines of playing Declan Rice, Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold in a midfield three, with Foden, Saka and Palmer behind Kane in attack – but those same people, will have neglected the fact that there’s not enough defensive cover there.
For me, I think Palmer will at least have the edge over James Maddison. The Tottenham man was in a similarly rich vein of form prior to his injury, and has not quite found such a purple patch since his return.
He still has qualities to bring to England’s side, and could make vital creative contributions at the tournament – just like Palmer – but competition for places is so tight that if one has to miss out, I’d be leaning towards Maddison.
A View from a Farr 