The Stark Statistical Decline of Cole Palmer at Chelsea

Cole Palmer for almost 18 months, was an absolute superstar, first under Mauricio Pochettino and later under Enzo Maresca. For a time, he was a goal and assist magnet who looked set to be one of the best English players in the world. His performances were a large part of the team winning the Club World Cup and Conference League and making a return to the Champions League. Unfortunately, the 2025/26 campaign has seen him hit a visible decline with some damning statistics showing he is more of an attack killer than an opposition slayer.

Cole Palmer Hits Worrying Decline in 2025/26 Campaign

What the Statistics Say

Using a combination of FotMob and the Wayback Machine, we have compared Palmer’s output after roughly 1400 minutes in 2025/26 to the same timeframe in 2024/25. The big picture is simple that in the Premier League, he has had 10 goal contributions this season, compared to 17 goals and assists in a similar minute total in 2024/25.

There is a massive drop-off in assist numbers from six to just one. The basic data is that he is less effective but when you dig into the available numbers on the Englishman, it looks far worse.

Creative Drop Off

So far in the current campaign, the attacker has just one league assist with an abysmal 1.8 Expected Assists, a decrease from 3.94 when compared to his benchmark a year ago. This is a decrease of two whole chances created. This is reflected in the information that he has only made 18 chances in the league in the current term with just three being deemed big chances.

His 18 chances created is a massive decrease from 44 a similar timeframe in his 2024/25 campaign, showing a major decrease in his ability to make the right pass or to get into the right areas. His duel winning percentage has decreased by roughtly 10%, putting him as an average for duelling among his peers. The same goes for his dribble success rate which is at 37.5%, one of the lower in the league among attackers.

The startling fact is that he has had almost the same amount of touches with around 800 for both datasets, this indicates that it’s not a case of him being frozen out or others sharing the workload, Palmer simply isn’t utilising the ball as well as he did in the past.

In addition, his goalscoring and shooting numbers are less impressive; his current tally of strikes is inflated by having more penalties than he did last term. his non penalty xG is down from about eight to 4.61, which isn’t a bad number but compared to his statistical peaks is a clear downward trend by his standards.