City's loss looks to be Chelsea's gain as £40m Palmer makes an instant impact

Cole Palmer used to be given metaphorical gold stars when he began training with Pep Guardiola.

He'd always do something described as 'special' in those sessions. Shift onto the left peg, swish the top right-hand corner. Classic Palmer. Players and staff stopped with the surprise after a while.

The only surprise is that Palmer isn't still at Manchester City and thriving. He wants to go back some point soon to say thank you to academy staff for the years of hard work put into his development because he never got the chance to bid farewell.

In fact, he was briefly paralysed in the driving seat of his car on what he suspected would be his last day but with the Chelsea move not yet 100 per cent confirmed.

As it was, he boarded an early train down to London Euston the next morning. And that was that. Football moves on, both City and the player considerably richer.

Chelsea, too, it turns out. Even if everybody with knowledge of the 21-year-old's journey knew he would succeed at Stamford Bridge, the wider watching public have been awoken to his talent. He's somebody who will undoubtedly play for England if he carries on in this vein.

A gamble, some said. Mauricio Pochettino's squad is too large as it is. He won't play enough minutes, which was exactly the reason for reluctantly asking for a move away from City, who he faces for the first time on Sunday.

But Palmer didn't go in blind; he studied the team, did his research. He saw very few who he felt were streets ahead and reasoned that the numbers in his area of the pitch weren't quite as bloated.

He knew he would impact Chelsea almost immediately. Raheem Sterling thought so too. 'It's a lot more difficult at City, so when I went to Chelsea I thought I could break into the team,'