Chelsea must 'trust' me to handle Cole Palmer's rise to superstardom, says Mauricio Pochettino | OneFootball

Mauricio Pochettino wants Chelsea to trust him to handle Cole Palmer's rising stardom as he becomes a household name.

The Argentine had similar situations in the past when managing Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Kyle Walker at Tottenham, helping them handle the pressures of becoming hugely famous and full international players.

Palmer's sensational form has seen him score 20 Premier League goals and 25 across all competitions since joining Chelsea in a £42.5million summer move from Manchester City.

As Chelsea prepare to face City in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley on Saturday, Pochettino insisted he is the best person to handle Palmer's rise.

“He needs to deal with new things. It is not a criticism,” he said.

“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.

Trust me: Mauricio Pochettino believes he is the best manager to help Cole Palmer on his meteoric rise

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“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.”

Chelsea beat Everton in a thumping 6-0 win on Monday night, where Palmer netted four goals, including a sensational 29-minute hat-trick. However, Pochettino believes there are areas he can still improve upon.

“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 said.

“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.”

A penalty row marred the match on Monday as Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson argued their case to take a spot-kick before Palmer eventually scored in the second half.

When asked how Madueke has since reacted, Pochettino explained: "We need to be careful with young kids not to judge too much. It is only to try to justify to them and not give them the opportunity to make the same mistakes.

“We need to be strong sometimes but also nice to understand the situation. The most important thing is to get them to understand that they are young and at a club where maybe six months after they arrive another player is signed who plays in the same place and has the same profile.

“You need to fight for your position and when you think that you should be playing that is not easy. I am not trying to justify but I need to justify these guys because they are not just top players, but we may have three strikers but only play with one and the other two have to wait.

“But that is part of the process they have to learn because they are young. For me, we are trying to give them the tools to be competitive and fight for his place and then we will see.

“We have a very good relationship but he is a young player who has made a mistake even in the situation that happened on Monday which was a mess.

“We saw the news everywhere but sometimes when they don't talk in a good way it is good because Chelsea are appearing to the whole world and players need to understand how to deal with this situation.

“But I am happy with him in the last few months, apart from the incident with the penalty, he is trying to understand what we expect from him. The most important thing with these kids is they need to look at what we and the club expect.