With Enzo Maresca at the wheel and Chelsea’s recent acquisitions all coming together to form something coherent, Blues fans have trust in their club once again.
Holding fifth place in the Premier League, Chelsea are blessed with some of the finest attacking talent on the continent, with a wealth of quality in the centre of the park and some of English football’s finest defenders too.
Of course, the cream of Chelsea’s crop operates between the forward and central lines. Cole Palmer hasn’t been so much a revelation as a saviour, signed for an initial £40m fee just over one year ago and guiding Stamford Bridge back into the limelight.
Cole Palmer's incredible rise
Chelsea welcomed one of England’s most exciting young talents in Palmer last term, but many across the country actually felt that the west London club had overpaid for a player untested as a regular in the Premier League.
How he has silenced the detractors. How he has speedily claimed a prominent seat in the upper echelon of Europe’s top talents. Last season, Chelsea might have only finished sixth in the league, awarded with a place in the 2024/25 Conference League after Manchester United won the FA Cup (swiping their Europa League spot).
Had Palmer been plying his art elsewhere, Chelsea may well have failed to escape from the sliding morass that they had fallen into the previous year, with his 25 goals and 15 assists in all competitions for the Londoners proving invaluable.
As per FBref, the Three Lions superstar, still only 22, ranks among the top 1% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals, the top 2% for assists, the top 10% for shot-creating actions, the top 20% for passes attempted and the top 9% for progressive passes per 90.
He’s the real deal alright, with Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher even pronouncing Palmer as “the best player in the Premier League” at the start of the month.
Having performed with such incredible efficiency, Palmer has already been duly rewarded with a contract extension, penning a new £130k-per-week deal that will keep him at Stamford Bridge until 2033.
Believe it or not, even with this lucrative new salary, Palmer is still not earning anywhere near as much as some of the Chelsea flops that have littered the club’s recent chequered period. Indeed, Timo Werner is one who is looked back on with not that much fondness.
Why Chelsea signed Timo Werner
In June 2020, Chelsea completed the signing of RB Leipzig forward Werner after meeting his £45m buyout clause under the management of Frank Lampard. It was seen as a significant coup for a forward who had also been coveted by Liverpool and Bayern Munich.
The pointers were promising. Werner had garnered a reputation as one of the most menacing strikers in Germany and had completed a fantastic 2019/20 campaign, posting 34 goals and 13 assists across 45 matches in all competitions.
This was a statement season but simply another year of clinical football from one of the country’s biggest talents. With electric pace and dynamic attacking movements, he appeared tailor-made for Premier League football.
Unfortunately, even a triumphant Champions League campaign in the Germany international’s first year in England was unable to see him live up to the price tag, with high-priced wages and an uninspiring goal return combining to brand Werner as a flop.
Timo Werner's total cost at Chelsea
Werner has plied his trade for Tottenham Hotspur since the start of last season, having failed to recapture the same heights back on home soil with Leipzig after falling by the wayside with Chelsea.
RB Leipzig
213
113
47
0.75
Stuttgart
103
14
11
0.24
Chelsea
89
23
17
0.45
Tottenham
25
2
4
0.24
The Blues were unable to get the best out of the 28-year-old’s qualities, sure, but his own wastefulness in front of goal proved to be the crux of his demise under Lampard and Thomas Tuchel, scoring just ten times in the Premier League for Chelsea across two campaigns, crucially missing 24 big chances in this same time period.
Take Palmer. The current Chelsea phenomenon has scored 29 top-flight goals for the Blues but has only missed 12 big chances. Some difference.
And when taking into account the fact that Werner earned more than £9m per year at Chelsea, which translates to around £173k-per-week, it’s clear that Chelsea have triumphed in whittling down their wage bill, even if it’s somewhat unjust that Palmer’s fresh terms still keep him below that of Werner’s salary at the club.
Indeed, when combining that salary expenditure with the fee forked out to bring him in from Leipzig, you can see that Chelsea were bled some £63m by their German blunder.
Of course, there’s no escaping from the fact that Werner played a fundamental part in winning the Champions League, a feat that, in a way, has immortalised his name in Stamford Bridge’s rich history.
Even so, it’s hard to justify that Werner’s total cost of around £63m across just two years justified the deal, even if he bagged against Real Madrid in the semi-finals. Pundit Rio Ferdinand perhaps encapsulated it neatly, calling Werner a player who is “frustrating” to watch.
He wouldn’t get a sniff in Chelsea’s crackling frontline of the present, even with a player of Palmer’s distinction pulling the strings behind him.
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