Maresca: Penalty miss won´t affect Palmer ´in a negative way´

Enzo Maresca says he does not expect Cole Palmer to be affected by his missed penalty during last weekend’s victory over Leicester City.

Palmer’s spot-kick, which was saved by Mads Hermansen, was his first failure in 13 attempts, ending the best ever Premier League 100% penalty record.

It means the England international has now failed to score in any of his last nine matches across all competitions.

Nevertheless, Maresca is unconcerned by the 22-year-old.

“Absolutely, Cole is going to miss more penalties,” the Chelsea boss said.

“I don’t have any doubt in the future he is going to miss more penalties, but he is going to score more penalties. I don’t think it affects him in a negative way.”

Palmer trained on Wednesday after he was absent for the previous two days, as did Reece James and Christopher Nkunku, though it remains to be seen whether they will feature against FC Copenhagen at Stamford Bridge on Thursday.

The Blues are 2-1 to the good in the Europa Conference League last-16 following last week’s first leg in the Danish capital.

“I was surprised last week because I watched many games, and they were always defending off the ball,” Maresca observed. “Then, against us, they were a line of five – even in the last game they played two days ago, they were a line of four.”

The Italian said Chelsea would be without the services of Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke until after the international break, while Malo Gusto could return this weekend.

“We have two games, and finally we have the international break, where we can recover the energy, we can recover the players and go for the last sprint,” Maresca added.

Testing out the touch.pic.twitter.com/Hy6mMTnkF2

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) March 12, 2025