Enzo Maresca spoke to the media after Chelsea's dominant 5-1 victory away against West Ham United. Despite initially going behind, the Blues reacted in a fantastic manner, having the game turned around by half-time.
Maresca went into more detail about the issue that saw Palmer miss out alongside the performance of exciting talent Estêvão and a new partnership that has been formed up-front.
"He felt something", - Maresca explains why Palmer did not feature
There was a cause for concern for fans of Chelsea before the game even kicked off when Palmer departed the warm-up early and headed straight down the tunnel with a member of staff.
The news was soon announced that the Englishman would not be featuring against West Ham and that Estêvão would make his first start in the Premier League.
Questions were asked about what happened during the warm-up, but Maresca explained after the match that there was an issue prior to the day:
"Cole in the last four or five days was not 100%. Today he tried the warm-up, but he felt something. So we prefer not to take any risk to get worse. And we'll see in the next hours if it's something important or not."
The Italian head coach went on to reveal that Palmer was nursing this same issue in the season opener against Crystal Palace:
"The Palace game, he was not 100%. But he is trying to make a big effort for the club, for the team, for the fans. Tonight again he tried again, but it was not very good."
There is no signal to determine whether Palmer will be out for a long period of time or not, but if it is the case of the latter, then the Blues have the likes of Gittens, Estêvão and Pedro to occupy his position.
Maresca expressed his desire to ease some of these new players into Premier League football, stating that the likes of Delap and Pedro may be ahead due to prior experience.
"For sure, Joao Pedro, Liam, Estevao, Jamie Gittens will be good for sure. They are all fantastic players. You can see that probably Liam and Joao are a little bit more ahead of the rest. But the reason why is because they were already here in England."
"We achieved top-four, that no one expected" - Maresca dismisses 'Cole Palmer FC' Label
A big positive for Chelsea to take away from this match is that all five goals came from different players, showing no reliance on any particular player. This has not always been the case for Chelsea, especially in the 23/24 season, where Palmer was by far the best player in the side, leading to the team receiving the label of ‘Cole Palmer FC.’
But Maresca has made his thoughts clear on this label, the run-in last season as an example of why the Blues are much more than a one-man team.
"The ones that they say that we are just a Cole team, for sure, Cole is our best player, no doubt. For sure, when we have Cole, we are a much, much, much better team."
"But I think we already showed last year, in two or three months, where Cole, unfortunately for us, was not 100%. When we achieved top four, that no-one expected."
*"The most important thing, no-one asked me in the first season to finish top four in the Champions League. They asked me in two years in the Champions League."*
One player who got his first goal involvement for his new club was Estêvão, assisting Enzo Fernández for Chelsea's third goal of the match. Prior to this, he did give the ball away for Paqueta's opening goal.
Whilst praising his performance, Maresca also stated that there is room for improvement for the Brazilian:
"We conceded the goal because of him, he lost the ball in the build-up, so he needs to make mistakes to learn. But overall, the performance was very good."
The Italian did go on to praise Estêvão for how he reacted to this mistake so early on in the game:
“Yes, that [the reaction] showed how good he is and the reason why he's here with us.”