Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher got a first start of the Euros for England last night, but it was in fact another Blue who made the biggest impact.
In a dreadful 0-0 against Slovenia, Cole Palmer contribute more in a cameo than most players have all tournament, and he even had grumpy pundit Roy Keane raving:
“You wouldn’t want to play against Cole Palmer. We knew when he came on we’d be talking about him. Every time he gets the ball you think something is going to happen… He will think he should be in that starting XI [for the next game]. He won’t think ‘I’m learning and I’m glad to be here’. He will be looking at Gareth, like the big personalities do, thinking ‘get me out there’.”
This is an England side which lacks any creativity, spark or magic, and Palmer is an expert at bringing that. Just like he did at Chelsea, he could burst onto the scene with England and become an instant star.
Never too late to correct a bad decision
So far we’ve actually been on board with Southgate’s decisions when it comes to Palmer – he has a team he’s been building through the qualifiers and Palmer exploded onto the scene so late that the England manager hasn’t had much of a chance to think of how to integrate him.
But now things have changed – the team Southgate built has been a disaster, and Palmer’s cameo yesterday was more than enough to justify tearing up the plan which wasn’t working to get the Chelsea man in at any cost.
We saw all season how effective he is where it counts – in and around the box. He racked up 27 goals and 15 assists in total last season, and even just in 20 minutes last night he created more threat than most England players had in 3 games.
Southgate has to put him in now, with his job on the line and nothing to lose.
Having seen Palmer’s magic all season, Chelsea fans will be very confident that England can still turn things around if they make this big call now.