Cole Palmer: I don't know why goals dried up but it will make me better

Times

a day ago

While I was waiting for Cole Palmer, a colleague got out his phone. 'Did you see it?' he said to me. 'Cole congratulating Mummy Pig on having another baby.'
We peered to check it was real, because on that sparse, cool, alternative planet Palmer lives on, you're sometimes not sure what is. And there was the Instagram post: the image of a newspaper story about series nine of Peppa Pig involving the arrival of new little sister, Evie Pig, with a comment from colepalmer10 beneath it: 'Nah this is so sick bruv congratulations Mummy Pig [fire emoji].'
And then Palmer saunters into the room for the interview. We're at England's training camp in Girona and the players have had a recovery day. What did the 23-year-old get up to? 'Just went on a bike ride, didn't I?'
And so it begins, another session in Palmer's laconic, bemused, inimitable presence. He doesn't do much press and last sat down with England reporters during Euro 2024, where he was unintentionally/intentionally hilarious about beans. This time there are fewer odd digressions and more football — maybe because he is slowly warming to the idea of being a star and people being interested in what he says. One answer stretches to five sentences. Short sentences, but the person in our group who knows him best says they have never heard him speak so much.
He is asked about his season with Chelsea, which started with a cavalcade of goals and assists before suddenly going dry. Why? 'I don't know. You tell me.'
Was it because he's young and such dips in form are inevitable when you're still growing as a footballer? 'I don't know. I just think it was one of them things when things weren't happening for me. It went on a bit longer than I thought it would go on. But I spoke to people about it and they explained it was going to happen. But they said that when I get out of it, I'll be an even better player than I was before.'
Who did the Mancunian speak to? 'I know myself players will go through it. I'm not stupid. But it was just people at the club [Chelsea].'
There were bumps during his youth career at Manchester City: did those experiences prepare him to dig in and persevere? 'You was a lot different. But then you go into Chelsea and you do that from a jump, and then you go into a dip, you just think, 'What's going on?' I don't mind. Obviously I did mind, but I didn't think it was the end of the world.'
He's interesting on Chelsea's progression, suggesting that the final week of the season, involving beating Nottingham Forest to finish fourth before winning the Conference League, was crucial and that one of his big ambitions with the club is to win the Champions League. He already has a winner's medal, having been an unused substitute for City in the 2023 final. 'I always say, I don't feel like a Champions League winner, if I'm being honest. It doesn't really mean anything to me.
'People say it, but I weren't involved. Obviously I played in the group [stage] and stuff like that, but it's not the same, is it?' he says.
He did, though, come off the bench in the final of Euro 2024 to give England hope of lifting the trophy by transcending a laboured performance with a brilliant, insouciant goal that made it 1-1, only for Spain to score a winner. He seemed so unaffected by the occasion, unlike nearly all his team-mates.
'I was just getting ready to come on like all the other games I came on, try and make an impact. I thought, 'It's the final, the last game, we're losing, I've got nothing to lose.' Well, we did, the biggest game of our career, but you know what I mean. So, yeah, that's what I was trying to do,' he says with a shrug.
Is a strength of his being able to stay in the moment? 'Yeah, I think so. An occasion like that [the Euros final], if you think about it, it might get the better of you. So I just try not to.' It's stuff like this, being so effortlessly chilled about being a fabulous footballer, that seems to lie at the heart of his appeal to younger fans.
In the playground and on social media they revel in his nickname, 'Cold' and his famous shivering goal celebration. Does he like it? 'Yeah. Obviously, when you see kids and that doing what they're doing and saying things, it's nice.' Is it that he has a charisma that youngsters, in particular, 'get'? 'I don't know. I'm just being myself.'
There was a remarkable moment last October at Stamford Bridge where Chelsea and Forest players had a mêlée. Almost every player was involved. Except Palmer. He just eyed all the pushing and shoving and detached himself, sitting alone on the pitch. Why is he so laid-back? 'I couldn't even tell you. Maybe my dad is laid-back.'
Does his family comment on it? 'My mum does, yeah. But my dad says, 'He's just like me, so just leave him alone.' What does mum say? 'Like, try and be a bit more involved and a bit more smiley and energetic and that.'
When is the last time he got angry? 'Maybe when I played PlayStation or something. I'm not just a robot like you guys in the media think I am and don't show no emotion. Obviously when there's no cameras and I'm on my phone to my mates and I'm doing stuff I enjoy doing…'
When we met Palmer at the Euros he made us laugh about adapting to life down south. When he signed for Chelsea it was the first time, barring matches and family holidays, he had ever left the north of England. He had said (with a little smile) he found southerners 'moody'. Is this still the case?
'They're all still like that,' he says. 'I think cos it's so busy, they're all stressed and that. It must be a southern thing. Sometimes I go into central London, but I couldn't live there.'