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Cole Palmer claims the squad just needs more time to gel
Chelsea forward Cole Palmer feels that the Blues have received unwarranted criticism when Gary Neville called them “billion pound bottlejobs” following last month’s Carabao Cup final.
The ages of some Liverpool players were the subject of much discussion. Jurgen Klopp had to rely on several adolescents since injured stars like Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szobozlai could not participate.
However, Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea team, which is still struggling in the lower part of the Premier League standings, isn’t exactly full of experienced veterans. Raheem Sterling, who is 29 years old, was by far the oldest player among the 15 players who played at Wembley; eight of them were 23 years old or younger. With Thiago Silva out due to injury, the only outfield player in the entire squad who is older than thirty is him.
Palmer contends that a lack of quality is not the cause of Chelsea’s issues.
“I feel like we’re good enough,” he told i. “We’re young, but we’re good players. So once we gel, we’ll be alright. Try and get to another final in the FA Cup, push as high in the league as we can, and keep going game by game and getting the team to gel.”
Palmer himself is only 21 and the £42.5m price tag for a player with only 41 first-team games under his belt at the time of his transfer from Manchester City raised eyebrows.
“I didn’t even think about the fee when I moved,” he continued. “I just thought, ‘everyone’s talking about the fee, but they’ve not even seen me play’. They’ve seen me play a few times but no one’s actually seen me play. So I didn’t really listen to it. I didn’t know how it was going to go when I came here but to get the opportunity to play every week, that’s why I came – for game time.”