How Cole Palmer's Past 2 Years Reveal A Key Problem With Modern Football

Cole Palmer's name has long been discussed in conversations over England's 'next big thing', and since taking the Premier League by storm as a 21-year-old Chelsea player, he has barely taken a step backwards.

But with great power comes great responsibility - and an unforgiving schedule to boot.

As Chelsea's ever-present dependable, Palmer has barely stopped to breathe since breaking into the Blues' starting eleven - and his fixture list over the past two seasons raises many questions regarding fixture congestion in modern football.

As bad as some fans are making Cole Palmer look, his stats are not bad this season. pic.twitter.com/RYJsprDfBN

— Frank Khalid OBE (@FrankKhalidUK) June 21, 2025

The Relentless Rise

After making his first Premier League start for Chelsea in October 2023, Palmer would have more than a week in between games just four times until the end of Euro 2024. Of these four occasions, only one was what the Players' Football Association (PFA) would deem 'uninterrupted'. He missed one game through injury, didn't play in one of the England matches in March, and had a ten day rest period between the end of the Premier League season and the start of England's Euros camp.

Back in 2022, the PFA managed to organise a meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino (which is a feat in itself) to discuss the until-then disregarded issue of fixture congestion. They emphasised the need for players to have breaks written into each season's calendar - time off that couldn't be overridden. As the meeting was with FIFA, there's probably no need to go into the tangible consequences of that meeting.

Infantino heard the complaints of an over saturated calendar, brushed them off, and announced the new-look, 32-team Club World Cup a year later.

The PFA expressed their desires for breaks to be 'protected' - and Palmer's 25-day break between the Euros final and his first pre-season game was the only time that his schedule could be considered protected for 2023/24.

With Chelsea in both the European Conference League and the Club World Cup this season, his fixture list has only grown. This time around, he has had three gaps of over a week between games - and for two of those, he was injured. The third was the nine days between the end of the Premier League season and a World Cup qualifier for England.

And that's with Chelsea showing some consideration for Palmer's wellbeing and not including him in their squad for the Conference League group stage last September.

That brings us to the present, where the top players from most English clubs are enjoying a well-earned holiday, the Blues are playing in the American heat in front of sparse crowds. Should they reach the Club World Cup final, Palmer will again have less than a month between seasons.

Absolutely no one is bothered about the Club World Cup. The latest cash grab from the football elites that fans have 0 interest in.

This is Chelsea v LAFC too, a game that should’ve got a decent crowd in theory, but fans are clearly voting with their feet.pic.twitter.com/qUrGEpAYux

— The72 - We Love the #EFL (@_The72) June 16, 2025

To put a number on it, Palmer has played 109 games in 630 days since making his first league start for Chelsea. That's one every 5.7 days, not factoring in any training or recovery days. During this time, he has missed 20 days through injury, and supposedly had time to rest in between seasons.

The Long-Term Risks

Of course, those with an apparent agenda against modern footballers would argue that their immeasurable paychecks, luxury lifestyle and the fact that 'all they do is kick a football around' all mean that they don't really need time off, but beyond the problem of players becoming emotionally burnt out, there is strong evidence to suggest that players - particularly youngsters such as Palmer - who are overplayed and under-rested, will become increasingly injury prone at a younger age than would have previously been considered normal.

Premier League veteran Ben Foster has previously said that in modern football, almost every player is playing at less than full fitness. "They're almost always carrying something". Gary Lewin, who has worked as a physiotherapist for England, Arsenal and West Ham, has expressed that "probably 30% of the team" are fully fit for each matchday.

The impacts of this truth are twofold. Firstly, with players unable to play at full capacity, the overall quality of modern football suffers - hindering the strength of football's 'image' to sponsors and consumers alike. In addition to this, players are far more likely to carry long-lasting injuries with them beyond their career if they are constantly being forced to play with minor knocks and twinges.

For Palmer, the mental and physical burnout may have played a role in his recent barren run.

Cole Palmer hasn't scored a non-penalty goal in 25 matches for club and country...🤯

Chelsea's starboy is on a bit of a cold streak 🥶❌ pic.twitter.com/L1rrzJsRvF

— LiveScore (@livescore) June 20, 2025

The Next Step

So, what's the solution? FIFA have made it quite clear that the number of fixtures per season is unlikely to go down. The Champions League, Club World Cup and World Cup have all increased in size in the past year.

Clubs will no doubt have people who are hyperaware of this and are driven to protect their players for both footballing and business reasons. It's become an increasingly popular sentiment in recent years that teams need 'two good players in every position' to succeed in the modern game. With so many competitions and no allocated time off, clubs need to be able to rotate players frequently.

But what would stop a club such as Chelsea taking this a step further? Could they continue to buy players, until their squad reaches such a size that they can name completely different squads for different competitions? With the Premier League's new Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR), this concept would take a while to introduce, but it's certainly a realistic projection of the direction football is headed.

Whether that's a good thing for the sport itself is far more subjective. The Club World Cup attendance figures seem to tell quite a story regarding what fans think of the over saturated calendar. And with players such as Palmer being so heavily worked at such a young age, one thing is certain: the current model of small squads playing 5+ competitions every season is unsustainable.