'It's my time' Palmer cool after red-hot start at Blues

England's rising star on his fearless penalty against City and the soul-searching before leaving his boyhood club

- David Hytner

'I am a player who always wants the ball ...  anywhere," Cole Palmer says, and he certainly wanted it on Sunday; 92 minutes on the clock, his new club, Chelsea, 4-3 down against his old one, Manchester City, but now with a penalty for an improbable draw at Stamford Bridge. "When I saw the ref give it, I thought: 'It's my time,"" he says.

Palmer had a word with his teammate Raheem Sterling, another former City player, and told him that, yes, he wanted it. "Raz was like: 'Fine," Palmer says, and it was easy to see a parallel to Chelsea's game at Burnley in early October when Sterling won a penalty at 1-1 and the ball just seemed to find Palmer.

The 21-year-old was not the designated taker that day but he could see the opportunity to score his first Premier League goal and he is not the kind of person to pass that up. "I looked at Raz because he won it and then he said: 'Take it," Palmer says. "It was just an in-game thing, really."

Palmer scored. Just as he did when Chelsea were given penalties at 0-0 against Arsenal and 1-0 down at Tottenham. The one against City, though, was bigger still. The narrative strands around it were compelling and it added up to a moment of the purest pressure, which only seemed to deepen as players from both sides were pulled apart and VAR checks were completed, a good few minutes ticking by.

Was Palmer nervous? He shrugs. He does that a lot. It is a quintessentially Mancunian brand of nonchalance. "Not really to be honest," he replies. "I felt I was waiting for a while. So I did think about my old club and stuff but after that not really."