Cole Palmer's incredible statistic shows why Chelsea star has been named Player of the Month

Cole Palmer has proved that there is life after leaving Manchester City and has taken to Chelsea as a duck to water. The 21-year-old has blown away records in his first season that many ex-players took years to put up.

His impact at Chelsea has been so remarkable manager Mauricio Pochettino was forced to admit Chelsea are just not as potent as they should be without their exciting Mancunian.

He said after the defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates: "You lose such a creative player that helps to play in the lines. It's difficult to lose players in these circumstances - that made the management very difficult. But today was more than that.

"We didn't compete from the beginning and it was difficult to be in the game against a team fighting for the Premier League. It's no coincidence. We need to compete in a different way but we are talking too much during this season. All the information we receive - we want to be in a different position next season. We need to take decisions."

Palmer has more goals in one season than any Chelsea player since 2010

Chelsea are still in with a decent chance to secure European football next season thanks to the former Manchester striker’s 21 league goals so far. He’s bagged 24 in total at Chelsea and if you want to add the two he got for City earlier in the season, that is 26 in all competition and counting.

It’s remarkable if you consider he’d never scored a league goal before joining Chelsea on transfer deadline day last summer.

The last time any Chelsea player scored more than Palmer’s 24 goals in all competitions was Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard in the 2009/2010 campaign. That season, Chelsea won the double. Didier scored 29 league goals and 37 in all competitions.

Frank Lampard got 27 in all competitions and 22 league goals as Chelsea produced a strong campaign under the evergreen Carlo Ancelotti who has just qualified Real Madrid to another Champions League final.

A few months later Fernando Torres signed from Liverpool and produced his best campaign with 22 goals in the 2012/2013 season. Then Diego Costa came in and got his best goal-scoring season in Blue with 22 goals in all competitions. The Brazilian got 20 in the league and two in the Cup competitions as Chelsea won the league under Antonio Conte in the 2016/17 campaign.

Eden Hazard’s most prolific campaign was the season he left for Real Madrid, the 2018/19 outing when he scored 21 in all competitions but 16 in the league.

So not since the days of Drogba and Lampard has Chelsea had a forward whose been able to bag 24 goals with three games and still in with a chance to add to his impressive tally.