Why Gary Neville was right to say Cole Palmer should not have spoken on the pitch to Pep Guardiola
Former Manchester City attacker Cole Palmer was smiling and talking to Pep Guardiola after City beat Chelsea 3-1 at the Etihad in the Premier League.
On The Gary Neville Podcast on Sky Sports, the former Manchester United right-back said: “Cole, you’re being played. You didn’t do enough out on that pitch in the second half. And he is an amazing player. Brilliant.
“But those Chelsea fans that have travelled up today, three or four thousand of them in that far corner, they wanted better than that. They don’t want to see you conversing with the opposition manager and smiling at the end of the game.
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“I know [Guardiola] has had him, but he didn’t play him and he sold him. Having a conversation inside, I’m not against that. He’s played for the manager.
“But I just felt at the end there was something about it I didn’t feel was right from a Cole Palmer perspective. I expected more from him in the second half.”
Palmer has been accused of “ghosting” in away games against City, Manchester United and Liverpool this term with no goal involvements in any of the three matches.
Chelsea had a massive chance to go 2-0 up at City, but Palmer overhit his pass to Nicholas Jackson. It is not the first time Guardiola has been animated with an opposition player after a match.
Who can forget him telling Nathan Redmond how frustrated he was that he was not fulfilling his potential?
In November 2017, City extended their Premier League win streak to 12 matches with a 2-1 victory over Southampton thanks to a 96th-minute Raheem Sterling winner.
But Guardiola was more concerned with the drop in performance level of an opposition player after Redmond had scored in a 1-1 draw in the identical fixture in the previous campaign.
Regardless of what was said, the optics are not good for Palmer, with people naturally questioning his loyalty to his current employers Chelsea.
