Blues boss urges the club to “trust” him to handle Cole Palmer’s rising fame after breakthrough season | OneFootball

Mauricio Pochettino wants Chelsea to trust him to handle Cole Palmer’s rising fame as the player becomes a household name.

Pochettino has similar experience of such situations with Dele Ali and Harry Kane breaking through during his time at Tottenham, and he helped the pair deal with the huge pressures of becoming very famous.

Palmer has had an exceptional season for the Blues following his move from Manchester City last summer, and has scored 20 Premier League goals and 25 across all competitions.

Ahead of Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final with City at Wembley the Argentine insisted he is the best person to handle Palmer’s rise.

“He needs to deal with new things. It is not a criticism”, Pochettino said in quotes picked up by The Standard.

“It is about saying that they will appear, different things which he will need to deal with and manage and of course, he needs to know how to deal and learn how to deal with this new situation.

“That is part of our job, as a coaching staff. That is the important thing. We need to help his environment. Him, but his environment also to understand how to deal.

“We have the experience as a coaching staff to deal with things like this. Also the club needs to trust in our judgement and assessment. The clubs need to trust. If they do not trust in us, it is difficult to work.”

Despite scoring a hat-trick inside the first 30 minutes on Monday night and scoring 25 goals in all competitions Pochettino believes there are still areas where the England international can improve.

“It’s difficult to say a guy that has scored 25 goals in the season. It’s difficult to say, ‘oh you need to run more’, because he’s doing perfectly his job in an offensive situation”, he added.

“But it’s true we are a coaching staff that we always demand more. ‘Yes you score, but you need to work. Yes you score, but you need to run when we don’t have the ball’. But he’s doing well.”

Pochettino will be hoping Palmer’s form continues at Wembley against his former side as the Blues look to reach their second cup final of the season.