Levi Colwill has backed Cole Palmer unequivocally, insisting the conviction in the dressing room has never been diluted. The defender, a man on a mission himself after losing almost an entire campaign to injury and being left out of England’s World Cup squad, is not under any illusions about Palmer’s importance to this Chelsea side.
If anything, Palmer’s 2025-26 season was relentlessly brutal and disappointing. He withdrew from the warm-up ahead of Chelsea’s second league game and missed 19 games for club and country in two spells, the latter prolonged by a broken toe. That broken digit, from a domestic accident, affected his playing time for longer, just before Enzo Maresca could reintroduce his talisman after a stubborn groin injury.
Speaking from the Blues’ pre-season base in Sydney, Colwill said of Palmer:
“We all know how good Cole is. We see it every single day. Last year was a difficult season for him with injuries, but we’ve never taken away the belief of how good he is. He’s a huge player for us and he can turn it on whenever he wants.”
Palmer scored 10 Premier League goals in 1,965 minutes. He was named in the 2025 FIFA Men’s Best XI while convalescing, plundered the fourth hat-trick of his Chelsea career at Molineux in February and reached his 50th goal for the club against Leeds, while captaining the Blues for the first time against Port Vale.
Xabi Alonso Calls for Better Game Management After Chaotic Chelsea Debut
Xabi Alonso kicked off his Chelsea stint with a frantic 6-4 win over Western Sydney Wanderers, with João Pedro’s nine-minute hat-trick rescuing an evening of considerable chaos. The Spaniard named an XI largely made up of academy graduates before introducing his established performers at the hour mark at Accor Stadium.
Kazakh teenager Dastan Satpayev scored inside six minutes for Chelsea, but the A-League side manoeuvred themselves into leading positions on three occasions. The Wanderers exploited many gaps in the Chelsea rearguard, mostly on the break or through basic mistakes.
Alonso declared:
“There were moments that we were struggling to find solutions, and we need to have this. The positives are that we corrected them, but there were moments that the game management is something that we can learn from today.”
The former Real Madrid head coach had genuine admiration for the opposition, praising their aggressive high pressing and evident commitment throughout a fiercely contested encounter. Palmer’s 26-minute cameo included an assist and will have provided encouraging auguries ahead of the campaign.