"No, Cole Palmer won't be for sale." They were the initial words and thoughts of Chelsea co-sporting director Laurence Stewart when asked just how one of the world's best players was eventually signed for £45million. Whilst the rest of the world sat back and ended up laughing at the much-maligned recruitment hierarchy, they were howling back in private.

“We didn’t think necessarily that we’d be able to get him here really, did we?" Stewart said in an interview with the Telegraph from earlier this season. The late swoop in August 2023 will now go down in Chelsea history as one of the great pieces of business. For the first time since Eden Hazard (and maybe N'Golo Kante), Chelsea can lay a firm claim at having the best current player in the Premier League. Given this is what Stewart and his close colleague Paul Winstanley were after, it's no surprise they were sceptical.

Chelsea were judged to have overpaid for Palmer, another left-footed nominal right-winger, when they signed him. How would he fit in? Why bother with another youngster in a team needing experience? If City are willing to let him go then what is wrong with him?

As it turns out, nothing. Palmer has now been nominated for the Fans' Footballer of the Year award - which you can vote for, here.

He was Chelsea's Player of the Season and Player's Player of the season as well as London Football Awards Men's Young Player of the Year and England's Men's Player of the Year all within 12 months. Palmer was voted into the Premier League Team of the Season, won PFA Fans' Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year, and has been crowned Premier League Player of the Month twice. On two occasions he has taken home Premier League Goal of the Month too.

It is easy to suggest this was always going to happen. When someone is this good it feels impossible that at some point they weren't going to explode. Palmer certainly had the confidence. Those who had actually watched him properly before Chelsea signed Palmer were understandably more positive as well. His talent was not up for debate. The questions of fit at Chelsea certainly were. Those doubts have been answered and then some.

If Palmer does nothing else at Chelsea he will still have had one of the best individual seasons on Premier League record. As far as debut campaigns go, it's up there with the very best. 22 goals in the league, 11 more assists, all from just 29 starts and 33 total appearances.

15 months on and the narrative has changed. Those inside Chelsea were sure from the get-go that Palmer would prove to be more than value for money. Nobody quite expected it to be shown on this level as soon. Pep Guardiola is surely one of those.

“Cole has been the decisive player, maybe of the season, in many aspects," he said in mid-April 2024. “He’s an exceptional player. We knew that when he was here.

“We know how he’s proving [himself], but he has had a lot of minutes. I said many times, I didn’t give him the minutes when maybe he deserved it. He wanted the minutes he now has at Chelsea.

“I understand completely. I’m happy for him because he’s a lovely guy, a shy guy. He has an incredible potential, otherwise he would not have been here. He’s playing good. He’s an incredible threat. He’s playing fantastically.”

Since that moment Palmer has continued to thrive. His calendar year has seen 28 goals and 15 assists in all competitions, and that ignores a rapid rise into the England squad with two goals - one in the Euro 2024 final.

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“So what can I say?" Guardiola was left to answer when asked why someone who was ready to be this good had failed to break through properly under his management. "The decision has been made for many reasons. He was asking for two seasons to leave.

“I said, ‘No, stay.' At the end, [he said], ‘No, I want to leave.' What can we do? I said in pre-season, ‘Stay because Riyad [Mahrez] has gone. 'He said, ‘No, I want to leave.' After two seasons, what can you say? So go there. Playing at that level is exceptional. Everybody knows it.”

Chelsea, who lost out on Kevin De Bruyne after a miss-guided sale to Wolfsburg in 2014 only to see City pick him up 18 months later for triple the price but ready to dominate England for a decade to follow, will have no sympathy. In the same time they are regularly reminded of the same mistake with Mohamed Salah. Letting a young Romelu Lukaku go permanently is a similar story and has had huge, negative ramifications in more ways than one since.

Palmer is now proving to be Chelsea's revenge. For De Bruyne, specifically, the parallels are obvious. The big difference is that Chelsea loaned to Werder Bremen and sold to Germany before De Bruyne was unleashed upon them in unrelenting fashion.

It is remarkable, among the many Palmer statistical feats, just how his record compares to De Bruyne. Ignoring his brief Chelsea career, De Bruyne scored 11 and assisted 18 in his first 48 Premier League matches at City.

In the same sample size for Palmer at Stamford Bridge, he has 33 goals and 17 assists. Even taking out penalties, Palmer's record is superior. Chelsea's No.20 is also younger than De Bruyne when he rejoined the Premier League and is at a considerably more junior stage of his career.

Alan Shearer, though, is not convinced that Guardiola ever did see Palmer becoming this good. "I wonder how Man City are looking at him now and their decision," he said on The Rest is Football podcast. “I know they got big money for him but I’m not sure they thought he would go to do the things he’s doing, no way.”

For now, Palmer is laughing. In fact, since October 26, Guardiola's side have won just one game. They have scored 12 goals in that period, losing seven and falling out of the title race. Chelsea were beaten by the reigning champions on the opening day of the season with neither side at full tilt.

Palmer was played out on the right-wing as he worked towards full fitness following an extended summer break after the European Championship in Germany. He has now scored just one less goal than Erling Haaland this season and going from the start of October, or the last nine matches, actually boasts more goals than the City forward.

It is form like this that made Chelsea push so hard for Palmer when the chance came. “We’d been speaking about him throughout that window and then as it came towards the latter stage of the window, we felt like we wanted to do something else and do something around that area of the pitch," Stewart explained. "He came up again and we all said ‘let’s go for it, let’s see what’s possible.' And then there seemed to be a little bit of feedback that there could be something there.”

Winstanley added: “He’d consistently flagged up on the profile of player that we were looking for in that position, but as we headed through the window, when you check in and you get told ‘no, not for sale, not for sale’. We weren’t going to get him on loan and that wouldn’t have suited us, either.

"We would have always preferred a permanent deal with someone like Cole. Then you enter a period when all of a sudden there’s a sense this might have some legs, let’s push, let’s go. And then once you set off on that journey, you’ve got to try to see it through if there’s a chance. And, to be fair to Cole, he showed great desire to come here and that’s the sort of player we want, the personality and the desire to come here.”

The pair now see him as someone who can rival Haaland for the Ballon d'Or. “No doubt he can, no doubt," Winstanley accepts confidently. "He’s got a bit of [a] maverick personality on the pitch, you can see that. You can see it in training, you can see it in the games. He’s got that ability.”

It is now down to Maresca to harness those skills. This isn't something that was always destined to happen, either. Despite the pair knowing each other from time at the City Development Squad together, there were questions over how Maresca - who arrived at Chelsea with the expectation of being extremely dogmatic - might limit Palmer.

"I’ve spoken with him many times," the head coach said during pre-season. "He is not going to play if he does not work. I had Cole one year so I know him. I know he likes a little bit of freedom. But if Cole is what he is now, it’s because he learned for 10 to 15 years the way he learned at Manchester City.

"On and off the ball, for sure he is a fantastic player. He scored 20 goals last season. Hopefully, he can score the same but it is not easy for any player to score 20 one year and do the same the next. What we want from Cole is to try and be himself.”

The comments raised alarm bells with the prospect of Palmer being limited in a strict tactical setup rather than offered the reign to do as he pleases. Retrospectively, it is easy to wonder if Guardiola would have had that effect and whether that is why Palmer never truly burst through.

Maresca has managed to unleash yet more of Palmer's brilliance regardless, using him in a variety of tweaked roles. There is no sign of him slowing down yet either.

Given just how little £45million gets you in the modern football market, Palmer is already a bargain for Chelsea. And doesn't Guardiola know it.