Cole Palmer breaks Chelsea Premier League goalscoring record in Fulham defeat | OneFootball

Cole Palmer's stunning strike in Chelsea's 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Thursday saw him break a club record for most Premier League goals in a single calendar year.

Midway through the first half, Palmer weaved away from three defenders and calmly slotted into the bottom corner to score his 26th Premier League goal of 2024.

No Chelsea player has ever managed more in the Premier League era, with Palmer breaking the previous record of 25 set by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink all the way back in 2001.

Hasselbaink just so happened to be on punditry duty for Amazon Prime's coverage of the game and offered his reaction to seeing his record broken.

"I'm an old man!" Hasselbaink laughed. "This has been standing for a long, long time. It's time now that it has gone. There is no better player than Palmer to do that."

Palmer broke Hasselbaink's record / Michael Steele/GettyImages

Unfortunately for Chelsea, the celebrations did not last long as Fulham struck two late goals to snatch a shock victory, with Palmer admitting after the final whistle that the Blues need to learn from the defeat.

"It's football, it happens," Palmer reflected. "We lost control for 20 minutes and they scored two. We were winning for the majority of the game, but to lose at the end is difficult. First half we played well. We controlled the game. We had quite a few chances.

"Second half, we seemed to lose a bit of control. They are a good transition team, they like to run, direct, so we got caught with their game and we paid the price.

"I don't think we lost energy or intensity, like the manager said we just lost control of the game, and we turned it into a game they're better than us at. We need to try and manage the game a bit better."