“We had a deal agreed” – Premier League vice-chairman reveals how close Chelsea were to missing out on their latest star | OneFootball

We reported earlier today on Fabrizio Romano’s claims that Burney and Crystal Palace were close to signing Cole Palmer before Chelsea swooped in. That’s no surprise – his talent was clear for all to see, and once Man City had denied him the chance to go on loan, a transfer was always coming.

Now we’re hearing from the horse’s mouth that West Ham were also in the hunt. The Hammer’s vice-chairperson Karen Brady has claimed that her club had a deal to sign Palmer actually agreed before Chelsea’s interest became clear:

“From all the newsreels I’ve seen, Cole is as cool a dude in front of goal as Jimmy Greaves himself,” Brady wrote in her weekly column for the Sun.

“Which is probably why David Moyes tried very hard to sign him. We even had a deal agreed with City until Chelsea swooped.”

The fact that Crystal Palace shut down our move for Michael Olise set off a chain of circumstances that led to our late interest in Palmer, which was spearheaded by Joe Shields, one of our key recruitment team members. Almost unintentionally, things worked out perfectly for Chelsea.

An alternate universe

We shudder to think where Chelsea would be without Cole Palmer this season. It’s not at all far fetched (in fact it’s probably an understatement) to say that without his goals we’d have 10 fewer points. That would put us in 14th place.

If we were stuck in 14th place, and the fans didn’t even have the shining light of Palmer to cling onto, the vibes would be so dreadful that we’re sure that Pochettino would have been sacked by now. We’d be in a significantly worse state, and going in a much worse direction. This could end up being one of those transfers which defines a decade at a club – there’s plenty of evidence of that already, and we’re only 9 months in.