Chelsea 2-1 Newcastle: Cole Palmer shines again as Chelsea continue their impressive start to the Premier League season

The trophy awaits but Chelsea are showing that, with kids, what you can win is lots of football matches and admirers.

This was not their best performance of the season and it always felt like those in attack would have to do their job better than those in defence, but there was also an inevitability to the outcome. Seldom have we said that in recent years. Whatever number Newcastle scored, Cole Palmer would likely do something to make sure his side scored one more.

Palmer, again, was the game’s outstanding player. He scored the winner and as good as assisted Nicholas Jackson’s opener, so outrageous was his pass at the onset of that attack. He plays as if with the ball on a string and his opponents knotted in it. Newcastle don’t have a Palmer. In fact, who does?

‘The reason why people come to stadium and pay money is to see players like him,’ said Enzo Maresca, whose side are up to fifth.

Palmer admitted afterwards that he only knew who special guest Gianfranco Zola was because of a video game. That is part of the charm with the 22-year-old, he does not pretend to be someone or something he is not. Palmer’s orbit is what he wants it to be, and if that does not extend far beyond his games controller and controlling football games then so be it.

His guile is what Newcastle lack, despite a midfield made up of Brazil and Italy internationals. The Toon Army have long wondered why they their club cannot do what Chelsea does. That frustration was confined to spending off the pitch. Right now, they are wondering why their team are struggling to compete on it.

This result puts Chelsea five points and seven places ahead of them in the table and, this season at least, you would expect those margins to get even greater. Chelsea are simply a better team with better players.

The bulk of Maresca’s bench would get into Eddie Howe’s starting XI, and to that end there is sympathy for the Newcastle boss. Their recent trading has left him short in too many key areas.

But even allowing for that disparity in quality, there is something amiss with the Magpies this season. To keep the campaign alive, they need to beat Chelsea in the Carabao Cup back at St James’ Park on Wednesday.

Maresca will make changes but Howe cannot, not if he wants to win. Scorer Alexander Isak will be asked to go again, even though parts of his performance here would warrant being dropped, never mind rested. He gave the ball away for Palmer’s goal and then, with team-mates free in the penalty area and the net gaping, he elected to continue a dribble and duly lost the ball. A goal then would have made it 2-2 with 15 minutes to play. Chelsea, you suspect, would have still rallied to win. Palmer would have seen to that.

Not that they should have needed to after an opening half hour in which they tormented Newcastle to the point of the visitors arguing amongst themselves. The Magpies started with five in midfield and yet, during those 30 minutes, did not have a midfield.

Palmer played between the lines, be that Newcastle’s defence and midfield or their midfield and attack. No matter where he went, no one followed. Even when he broke the lines, as he did when seeing a fifth-minute finish ruled out by a VAR offside, it was as if he was playing with an exclusion zone around him.

Palmer does not need space – as he showed when nutmegging and spinning away from Fabian Schar in a rare moment of early visiting pressure – but give him it and he will punish you.

Still, the pass that led to Chelsea’s 19th-minute opener was about more than space. Palmer collected the ball 10 yards outside his own penalty area and whipped it another 50 upfield, in behind full-back Tino Livramento to spring Pedro Neto clear. It was a pass that deserved a goal and, when Neto rolled into the path of Jackson, it was a simple finish. It owed everything, however, to the complexity of Palmer’s contribution.

Newcastle levelled after a fine move of their own – albeit against the run of play – when Livramento bustled through the middle of the park and found Harvey Barnes who fed the overlapping Lewis Hall. He put it on a plate for Isak to turn in from three yards.

The scores were level for just quarter of an hour and, within 90 seconds of the restart after half-time, Isak lost the ball on halfway and Palmer was allowed to advance before drilling into the bottom corner. He made it look rather easy. Saying that, so did Schar, who backed off and failed to make a challenge, no doubt traumatised by the earlier nutmeg.

There were a few nervy moments towards the end for the Premier League’s youngest team – average age 23 this season – but they saw out the win like men, no one more so than defender Reece James.

But the star was Palmer. It always is.