Cole Palmer has revealed he wished Chelsea’s quantity 10 shirt to emulate his idols Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney.
The 23-year-old beforehand performed with No. 20 on his again however modified forward of the Membership World Cup and wore his new quantity for the primary time in Monday’s 2-0 win over Los Angeles FC.
Requested if the there have been any quantity 10s he significantly noticed as position fashions, Palmer mentioned: “Messi, the massive one, Rooney and gamers like that. It is simply an iconic quantity. I wore No. 10 all my life rising up and I similar to the quantity.”
Former Chelsea greats Eden Hazard, Joe Cole and Willian wore the quantity 10 shirt but it surely was most just lately taken by Mykhailo Mudryk, who’s going through a possible ban of as much as 4 years after the Soccer Affiliation charged him on Wednesday with a doping offence referring to a constructive medicine check.
“I’ve not spoken to Misha but however I’ll when the time is true,” mentioned Palmer. “It isn’t actually my place to get entangled with him on the minute. I’ll converse to him.”
Palmer additionally performed down any options of a disagreement with head coach Enzo Maresca over Chelsea’s fashion of play.
After creating two assists to assist the Blues combat again towards Actual Betis to win final month’s Convention League last, Palmer claimed he was “sick of going backwards and sideways” and Maresca subsequently claimed he spoke to the playmaker a day later to induce him to be extra expressive.
“We had a joke about it,” mentioned Palmer. “My feedback weren’t in the direction of the supervisor or something. It was only a private factor. I felt like within the recreation, I used to be possibly being a bit protected. In order that’s the place the remark got here from.
“I wished to get the ball and take a look at one thing totally different than beforehand. Clearly you’ll be able to’t take the p— and do like no matter you need and stuff, however I really feel like he [Maresca] nonetheless offers you slightly little bit of room to try to see what I can do.”
Palmer is without doubt one of the poster boys of the Membership World Cup, his face adorning massive banners situated throughout Philadelphia, the place Chelsea are primarily based for the subsequent week forward of video games towards Flamengo and Esperance Sportive de Tunis.
Palmer joined Chelsea for a deal price £42.5 million in September 2023 after simply 19 Premier League appearances for Manchester Metropolis however has shortly established himself as one among English soccer’s brightest skills.
Requested about his new-found fame and whether or not individuals cease him on the street, Pamer mentioned: “I’m only a regular child so when individuals do stuff like that I believe … why me?
“I nonetheless do the identical issues now that I did earlier than I got here to Chelsea. I try to assume it is only a recreation of soccer on the finish of the day, prefer it’s not life or demise. So I simply try to get pleasure from it. I prefer to go and play five-side and go to the astro [turf] and simply do regular issues [to take my mind off things].”