Cole Palmer Following Phil Foden Path To Manchester City First Team

The headlines will belong to Erling Haaland. They probably will do in any game he plays for Manchester City.

But with the Norwegian goalscoring dynamo off the field in the second half of City’s Champions League group game against FC Copenhagen, there was a chance to look at what’s going on below the surface at Pep Guardiola’s side.

“He scores every time he gets the ball doesn’t he?” Haaland’s replacement, Cole Palmer, said of the Norwegian’s arrival at City.

“He’s frightening. Good lad as well, so we’re delighted to have him.”

Palmer himself is one of the most intriguing non-Haaland sub-plots for City this season, as he will be in coming campaigns and was in their most recent game.

Yes, there was an outstanding performance from English attacking midfielder Jack Grealish, and Sergio Gómez’s shift from left-back to midfield was notable.

Yes, Riyad Mahrez scored from the spot and assisted one for the forward next in line to Haaland, Julián Álvarez—who will have his own City story as the support act to the main striker—but on Wednesday night, the play of 20-year-old Palmer also stood out.

The man from the south Manchester district of Wythenshawe completed 96% of his passes, two dribbles and had a couple of shots on goal for good measure.

He and his manager may have liked him to be a little more involved than his 33 touches in the game (17-year-old Rico Lewis managed 40 touches in 34 second-half minutes at right-back, for example) but those touches added up to a noticeable contribution.

“Cole Palmer is an excellent player,” City manager Guardiola said of Palmer replacing Haaland at halftime. “A top-class player, and he was looking forward to playing.”

And it showed. Palmer clearly enjoyed his 45-minute cameo. It was his seventh substitute appearance of the season but was the first time he’s played a full half of football.

Surely a start is just around the corner, but with City’s wealth of talent it can be difficult to break into the team.

Another local youth academy product, Phil Foden, has shown the way in this regard, making himself a fixture in the City first team as well as becoming a regular with England.

Palmer has played for every England age group so far but is yet to make his senior debut. It is surely an inevitability. More appearances for City, and more displays of a skillset which combines inventiveness, flair, creativity, and at 6 foot 2, a considerable physical presence, will surely lead to the next step at international level.

But for now he’ll be limited to fleeting cameos for his club. Perhaps once City have mathematically secured their qualification for the knockout rounds of the Champions League, which they are likely to do in Copenhagen next week, then Palmer may get his first starts of the season in the remaining games.

He would surely thrive alongside the team’s big hitters such as Haaland, João Cancelo, and Kevin De Bruyne. At the moment one or more of these players are usually off the field by the time he’s subbed on, but he still stands out regardless.

There were moments of skill in his Copenhagen cameo that turned what could have been a fairly drab, run-of-the-mill second half, with City having all but won the game, into something more entertaining.

There are hints of both Grealish and Foden in his play, and all three have rare talent. He will no doubt be learning from these two teammates, as well as the rest of the world-class players in this squad of global stars, as he charts his own path to senior football.

He’s in a similar position to that which Foden found himself a couple of years ago, and the 22-year-old from Stockport is now a key player for club and country.

At the start of the season, there was plenty of interest in Palmer from other clubs looking to loan the young star, but Guardiola was adamant that he wouldn’t be allowed leave.

“Cole [being loaned out] isn’t going to happen,” Guardiola said.

“He is one step forward from the other [academy players]. I think the other guys could play with us but we decide in that position sometimes we loan out, sometimes they stay here, but if he is with us it is because he has a special quality.

“Unfortunately last season he was injured and now he feels good and he played really well [in a midseason friendly] in Barcelona.

“He is a player who can play with us and play in two or three different positions.”

Foden was also a player for whom loan moves were touted by the media and sought by other clubs, but City kept hold of him to ensure he developed to fit their way of playing. It looks like the same will happen with Palmer.

A young player’s rise to the top of the game is never guaranteed, especially in a star-studded squad such as City’s, but homegrown players are important to clubs participating in UEFAEFA
competitions, and Guardiola seems to have identified Palmer as a player with the talent to make the step up, just as he did with Foden.