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View image in fullscreenMaresca believes Chelsea can reach ‘something important’ with Cole Palmer‘If we want to finish top five, we need Cole,’ says managerLiverpool’s Arne Slot on defeat: ‘The margins are small’

“The kind of player who can do things that no one expects,” Enzo Maresca said of Cole Palmer after this game.

Still, pretty much the last thing anyone expected Palmer to do in mid-January was to go 18 games without a goal in all competitions.

Now, with the drought finally at an end courtesy of a late penalty against Liverpool in a 3-1 win for Chelsea, Maresca said that Palmer was “not happy” with his lack of goals in the last few months, and backed him to help Chelsea “reach something important” in the crucial last few games of their season.



Palmer breaks goal drought as champions Liverpool beaten by ChelseaRead more

Chelsea are now all but certain to reach the Conference League final later this month, while also facing their Champions League rivals Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in the hunt for the top five.

With this in mind Palmer’s return to the scoresheet could scarcely have been better timed, even if Maresca insisted that his level had not dropped in recent months.

“We saw Cole day by day in the training ground, and he was exactly the same way: scoring goals, happy, enjoying the session,” Maresca said.

“Of course when he is not scoring goals he is not happy, because he wants to help the club reach something important.

But I didn’t see a different Cole from two months ago.

“I said before that if we want to finish top five, we need Cole and Nico [Jackson] to score.

Now we have three more [league] games, and on Thursday the second leg [in Europe], and hopefully he can help us.”

Referencing his goal drought to Sky Sports afterwards, Palmer said: “Obviously shit happens.
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