“He keeps causing problems for every teams, plays like Eden Hazard” – Roberto De Zerbi names Chelsea star as Eden Hazard successor after causing Brighton 2-1 defeat to Chelsea
The Chelsea team led by Mauricio Pochettino secures a crucial three points away from home to maintain their chances of qualifying for Europe next season.
As for Chelsea star Cole Palmer, who has scored 22 Premier League goals, Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi has praised Palmer for his outstanding performance against his team and named him Chelsea’s next Eden Hazard.
With his exceptional goal-scoring ability, Cole Palmer has single-handedly led the team from the bottom of the midtable to what should be continental football the following season.
Palmer opened the score for the Blues on Wednesday night at the Amex in their penultimate Premier League match of the 2023–24 campaign against Brighton.
As a result, Palmer has now accounted for 32 goals in 33 Premier League outings for Chelsea.
Cole Palmer has surpassed one Eden Hazard stat with his goal against Brighton tonight. Palmer now has 22 league goal contributions in his debut Chelsea season, which is one clear of Eden Hazard in 2012/13. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink still tops the debut season charts with 32 goal contributions in 2000/01.
Nevertheless, the Seagulls led by Robert De Zerbi come to an end of this historic campaign, having fought for a top 10 spot on four fronts both domestically and on the continent.
De Zerbi had not expected them to win just one of their last nine Premier League games, but the Italian believes that greater potential lies ahead for next season now that their injury issue is almost behind them.
De Zebri showered the youthful prodigy with praises prior to the game.
“We tried to bring him in the transfer market last summer. We thought he could be a top player,” De Zerbi told a news conference, as he spoke of Cole Palmer.
“The qualities of Palmer are clear for everybody, but not when he played for Manchester City. This season he is playing very well, he is scoring a lot of goals.”
“The quality of Palmer is very high,” he added, as his team prepare to take on Chelsea in midweek.
“He’s a problem for us tomorrow because he can start in the winger position and come inside or [play as] a number 10 as well.”
After the game Zebri still can’t stop talking about the young star Cole Palmer:
Cole Palmer and Christopher Nkunku put the Blues two goals in front on Wednesday, before Welbeck scored his seventh goal of the season.
“We didn’t play well in the first 20 minutes, but after that we played a good game. It’s a clear penalty [for the foul on Simon Adingra].
“Against [Cole] Palmer, [Nicolas] Jackson and [Christopher] Nkunku it’s possible to concede on the counter-attack. In that moment [for the second goal] we were playing well and we could have scored a goal. Maybe we could pay more attention to the counter-attack, but I think we played a very good second half.
“But we can’t say anything in this moment, in this season, because we suffered too many injuries. We know the level of the players of Chelsea, we know what they spent in the last two, three transfer markets. But I want to give my congratulations to Mauricio Pochettino, because he is doing a very good job.”