{"id":935783,"date":"2026-05-03T21:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/935783\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T21:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:47:20","slug":"cole-palmer-can-star-for-england-at-the-world-cup-says-calum-mcfarlane-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/935783\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole Palmer can star for England at the World Cup, says Calum McFarlane \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea interim head coach Calum McFarlane is confident that Cole Palmer can play a starring role for England at the World Cup despite enduring the most difficult season of his senior career.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old has seen his campaign badly impaired by injury which in turn has affected his ability to perform consistently when he has played.<\/p>\n

Palmer has scored only 10 goals in all competitions, by far his lowest return since moving to Stamford Bridge from Manchester City in 2023, and has struggled to impact games with the regularity that fans had grown used to.<\/p>\n

\"PalmerPalmer suffered from a groin injury earlier in the season (John Walton\/PA) <\/p>\n

That has led to questions surrounding the kind of influence he will be able to have for Thomas Tuchel\u2019s side in North America this summer.<\/p>\n

\"North<\/a>\"Daniel<\/a><\/p>\n

But stand-in boss McFarlane, who faces his first home game in charge against Nottingham Forest on Monday, thinks the playmaker will be able to put his struggles behind him to perform for his country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult period for Cole,\u201d said McFarlane. \u201cHe\u2019s had his first injury that he\u2019s never had in his career. He\u2019s had to learn how to deal with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with the narrative that he isn\u2019t playing well. There\u2019s obviously games where he can impact more, but there\u2019s also been a lot of occasions where he\u2019s created a lot of good chances for players. He can\u2019t control whether that\u2019s finished, he can just put the ball in the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think he\u2019s had some really good games in the last three months. It\u2019s just a case of building that consistency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really pleased with Cole. He showed us his talent every single day. His energy, his enthusiasm to play. He\u2019s still a top, top player, one of the best in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no concern over Cole being ready to impact games from now until the end of the season and hopefully in the World Cup with big moments for England.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer has missed 21 games for Chelsea this season, the majority with a recurring hamstring problem that meant he had featured only twice for the team in the Premier League by December.<\/p>\n

\"CalumCalum McFarlane won his first game in interim charge against Leeds last Sunday (Adam Davy\/PA) <\/p>\n

He was however fit to appear in both of both of England\u2019s friendlies during the most recent international break, the draw against Uruguay and the defeat to Japan, both at Wembley.<\/p>\n

He is likely to be in competition with Morgan Rogers and Jude Bellingham for a starting place in Tuchel\u2019s team at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Tuchel noted at the time that the former City youngster had appeared to have recovered his stride length after struggling for so long to recover from a groin problem.<\/p>\n

Palmer is the only England men\u2019s player to have scored a goal in a major tournament on foreign soil, with his effort to equalise in the 2-1 defeat to Spain at Euro 2024.<\/p>\n

His only other goal came in a warm-up game for that tournament against Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea interim head coach Calum McFarlane is confident that Cole Palmer can play a starring role for England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,257581,885,261600,1172,393,4884,142294,101,10031,83702,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-935783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-calum-mcfarlane","10":"tag-chelsea","11":"tag-chelsea-vs-nottm-forest","12":"tag-cole-palmer","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-nottm-forest","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-soccer","18":"tag-stamford-bridge","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116512847733101080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}