Enzo Maresca believes Chelsea have shed their ‘Cole Palmer FC’ tag after watching his side become the Premier League’s most prolific outfit.
Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over Southampton took Chelsea’s goalscoring tally to 31 in 14 Premier League games this season, two more than table-toppers Liverpool.
Last term, the Blues’s attack was regularly accused of being overreliant on Palmer, who scored 22 goals and provided 11 assists during a remarkable breakthrough campaign.
That reliance was evidenced towards the back end of the season, when Mauricio Pochettino took his side to Arsenal without the ill Palmer and saw them hammered 5-0. It was the only one of Chelsea’s final 15 games that the Englishman missed and brought their only defeat.
This term, however, even with Palmer continuing to contribute heavily, the goals have been shared around. Christopher Nkunku is the club’s leading scorer across competitions with 12 goals, while Nicolas Jackson has eight league goals and Noni Madueke five.
In all, 10 different players have scored in the league for Chelsea, a spread bettered only by three clubs. Tellingly, Maresca’s men have already taken eight points from league games in which Palmer started but did not score or assist - the same as in the entirety of last term.
“Yeah, and we are very happy,” Maresca said, when asked whether Chelsea now free of that ‘Cole Palmer FC’ moniker.
“If you remember in my first press conference, I said that we cannot rely on Cole for every game because it is not correct.
Christopher Nkunku is Chelsea’s top scorer this season
Chelsea FC via Getty Images
“He has to enjoy football, but if we prepare the season thinking Cole is the only solution then we are wrong.
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“We work every day to allow Cole to be in situations where he can be the best and be good. You see that we move him from the right side to the left side, or from one side to the other side, because we want to put players in situations where they can be the best.”
Meanwhile, Maresca refused to engage with supporters’ concerns over Anthony Taylor’s appointment as referee for Sunday’s London derby against Tottenham.
Taylor took charge of the heated 2-2 draw between the sides two years ago, which ended with an infamous spat between then managers Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte, and with Chelsea adamant that both Spurs goals should have been disallowed.
The 46-year-old was also in the middle for the Blues’s fiery 1-0 win at Bournemouth earlier this season, awarding a Premier League record 14 yellow cards, including eight to Chelsea players.
Maresca insisted he will not be warning his team any more than usual about their behaviour ahead of the game.
“We don’t plan the game because of the referee,” he explained. “For sure we give the players some information in terms of some general information.
“But that game was probably intense because Bournemouth away, you see last night and in general – the Arsenal game, the City game – they are always intense, aggressive.
“So, sometimes the game becomes difficult to manage for the referee so you start to give yellow cards. But I don’t have anything to say about the referee.”