I guess as a football player when you step out on to the pitch and you instantly have a shadow following you around from kick off until the end of the game, then that is one of the biggest compliments you can receive.
Cole Palmer has not got to that point.
Eden Hazard and Palmer are/were completely different players in terms of style, but in terms of impact and being difference makers and talismen, they draw many comparisons.
Hazard was a marked man. He would be man marked most games come the end, and they would consistently be kicking him and flooring him. With Hazard though, he would often brush himself off, pick himself up, run past his man marker not once but come back and do it again, and then set up or score a goal to have the last laugh. He also had the physicality to keep hold of the ball and bounce players off him.
Palmer is now getting this same treatment, and it’s a huge testament to where he is as a player right now.
Lewis Cook was man marking him on Saturday night and if Anthony Taylor didn’t exist, might have even got sent off for consistent fouling of Palmer.
On this situation, Enzo Maresca said:
“This kind of player, they are going to always get this. Cook was marking him 95 minutes man-to-man – or 95 minutes maybe not because after we put him wide – but he had man-to-man all the game and it’s not easy for Cole.
“It’s not easy for any player, but you have to find different solutions.”
Palmer looked frustrated at times, you could see it and feel it. And he did have a pretty quiet game by his standards. But this is now just a new thing that he is going to have to deal with. When you are the biggest threat on the pitch, you often become a marked man. This is another development stage for Palmer and he will now need to learn, alongside the coaches, how to deal with this, just like Hazard did.
Palmer doesn’t have the same dribbling ability and low centre of gravity that Hazard had, he also lacks some of Hazard’s physicality despite being tall. There hasn’t been many better dribblers of the ball off the mark from a standing still position than Hazard. Palmer doesn’t do that really.
But he will need to find ways to lose his marker, ways to frustrate his marker. He can do that by playing a clever pass or perhaps drawing his marker out of position, taking him wide or to the opposite end of the pitch.
Palmer can beat a man too, we have seen that. But he doesn’t quite have the build or the pace to be a devastating dribbler.
However he learns to deal with man markers and constant fouling is going to be down to him and the coaches, but I have no doubt he will develop and find a way to get on top of this next challenge in his career, because he backs himself so much and knows how good he is.
It’s also a HUGE compliment and a sign of how far he has come in just one season.
