The invisible brilliance of Cole Palmer

Evening.

A week before the season started I said Cole Palmer would win Player of the Season. A few people told me I'd lost it and to be fair to them, they had a case.

Now, two games in I'm not going to sit here and tell you I was right. What I want to do instead is show you what I actually saw when I made the call, so you can see if I was justified in my claim in May.

Because the interesting thing about Palmer isn't that he's good. Everyone knows he's good. It's that what makes him good is almost entirely invisible and it's the part of the game we hardly ever coach.

Let's be fair to the doubters first, because their evidence was decent.

Last season: 26 league games, 10 goals, 1 assist. He only scored or assisted in eight league games all year. There was a run of twelve games at the back end where he got zero contributions.

He carried a groin problem from the opening weeks. He went abroad for specialist opinions and got close enough to surgery to seriously consider it before deciding against it. Chelsea finished tenth with no European football to show for it. Then Tuchel left him out of the England World Cup squad, which is about as public a verdict on a player as you can get.

So when I said Player of the Season, people weren't being daft.

But here's what the numbers don’t tell you. He had the whole summer off. He came back fit for the first time in a year, under a manager whose football happens to be built for him.

Two league games so far: two goals, one assist. A goal and an assist away at Fulham with a 9.1 match rating, then a goal at home in the 4-3 against Brighton.

Many people when they hear the word ‘tactics’ immediately just think about the team as a whole, but it’s the individuals that make up the functions of a team and the individuals must perform specific behaviours to try and achieve the teams tactical intentions.

Therefore, we must assess individual tactics. What do they do? How do they do it? Why did they do it? How does it align to the team?

Individual tactics are different. It's the decisions one player makes before the ball ever gets to him. Where he looks. How he stands. When he moves and when he deliberately doesn't. By the time the ball arrives, the important part has already happened.

And most of the time, you can't see it on a highlights reel, because that only shows something if it has a ‘good’ or ‘exciting’ outcome and actually cuts out the important bit 10 seconds beforehand. That's exactly why it might be under-coached and it's why Palmer looks like he has more time than everyone else. He doesn't have more time. He just thought about what he was going to do with that time before everyone else did.

Here I’m going to highlight the details of what makes Palmer an amazing and intelligent player to watch. Look at how he prepares for the action he’s going to take.

Moment 1.

Here Palmer makes a movement towards the ball and he checks his left shoulder as he is travelling to see if he has oncoming pressure from behind. The ‘as he is travelling’ part is vitally important. Many players can get caught staring at the ball if they are looking to drop towards it, but if you arrive and haven’t checked, you won’t even know if you are in a good position to receive it.

Now here’s what separates ‘good’ from great. We can see here he checks his shoulder again but this time as the ball is travelling in towards him. This is called a critical scan and is an important part of the perception phase because Palmer needs to assess whether his picture that he spotted half a second before has changed. Also notice how he is decelerating as the ball is travelling into him as he is looking to take the pace of the ball as it arrives.

Now with the momentum taken out of his stride, he can show some deception by allowing the ball to travel onto his back foot, snapping his hips in a quick motion to destroy the defender's press.

He has now beaten is man with one touch and can now exploit the forward space left by this defender.

Moment 2.

This is a different moment, but notice how his behaviours are the exact same.

Again Palmer checks his left shoulder and he notices which defenders are behind him and how far away they are. Also spotting what support he has available for a possible progressive pass.

Another critical scan, as the ball is travelling, to check if the picture has changed and where his support is. Also which side the defender is pressing on.

And again another snap of the hips to allow the ball to travel onto his back foot as he wants to prioritise trying to play forward.

Most players would just bounce the ball back with their front foot in this scenario. But if his team are to get up the pitch quicker, sometimes you have to take a risk. He draws the defender and only then does he play it. This is also elite timing.

Here's what I think the doubters missed.

The half turn needs sharpness. The timing needs the confidence you can still beat the man if it goes wrong. Arriving late in the pocket needs you to actually be able to accelerate out of it.

But if you play a season with a groin problem (as palmer did), those are the first technical things to go. Not your finishing. Your decision making, because you stop backing and trusting your body to carry out the decision you want.

So really, last season, Palmer could not effectively carry out his individual tactics that make him the player he is.

Constrain the picture instead of telling them the answer. These individual actions rely on a players instinctive nature, so you need to give them the ability to problem solve on their own. Two touch, or maybe a rule that they can't receive facing their own goal. They'll scan because the game/constraint forces them to, since they have to receive to turn.

Talk through the pictures. Although you might see a player scan, it doesn’t always mean they picked up the correct information. Stand behind the player and ask what they saw before the ball came (all the details). If they can't tell you, it shows that you need to help them spot certain triggers and movements.

Give them permission to hold it. We coach speed of play so hard that we sometimes train the ability to delay and draw pressure. This is a way of being deceptive and is a key skill that all individuals need.

Reward positioning. Even if they never receive the ball, they need to know that the position they picked up was a good one and then they need to know why. Otherwise they will only think they are in a good position if they receive the ball.

If Palmer wins it, come back and tell me. If not, tell me aswell (I’ll be able to take it haha). But all of this was to highlight how the best individuals behave and how much that players environment can affect their ability to perform.

Until next week,

Lucas

p.s: if you want to build your own Principles for how you want your team to play, I’ve broken it down simply in this workbook. click here.