Cole Palmer: Keep working and laughing and goals will come, Enzo Maresca tells forward

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is encouraging Cole Palmer to keep working hard and stay positive, believing that goals will come soon. Despite Palmer's failure to score in his last seven games, Maresca remains confident in him.

The 22-year-old is Chelsea's top scorer in the Premier League this season. Although he failed to find the net in Tuesday night's game against Southampton, Chelsea still secured a dominant 4-0 victory, moving back into the top four. While four different Chelsea players got on the scoresheet, Palmer missed several clear-cut chances.

Despite Palmer's inability to end his goal drought, Chelsea manager Maresca stated that his team remains "happy" with Palmer's performance and hopes the player himself can stay optimistic. "He has to keep going, keep being happy, keep smiling like he is," Maresca said in an interview with the BBC. "It's normal to have a period where you struggle to score, but it doesn't matter. Just keep going and you'll score a lot of goals."

Palmer was in excellent form earlier this season, scoring 14 goals and providing 6 assists in his first 21 Premier League games. However, he has since struggled to directly contribute to goals. Many Chelsea fans, as well as fantasy football players, were expecting Palmer to restart his scoring run in Chelsea's home game against bottom-of-the-league and defensively weak Southampton. During the match, Palmer did have multiple opportunities, completing 7 shots, one of the highest single-game shot tallies for a Chelsea player this season. However, he missed two one-on-one chances in the first half, one saved by the goalkeeper and the other going wide. In the second half, he also blasted a cutback over the bar. His expected goals (xG) total was 1.07.

Late in the game, Palmer responded with a smile after his free-kick was saved by the goalkeeper, seemingly amused by his own goal drought. Maresca praised his reaction in the post-match press conference. "The important thing is your reaction. His reaction was very good. He was smiling, he was happy. We have no doubt that he will score more goals," Maresca said. "He's also human. Everyone, all great players, all normal players, great clubs, great managers – we all have bad moments. Even though he's young, he's been at a big club, he knows that all great players have these moments."

Besides Palmer, Christopher Nkunku and Pedro Neto also performed well in Tuesday's game, each contributing a goal and an assist. With forward Nicolas Jackson sidelined due to a thigh injury, Neto again played the false nine role. "We need to find a solution," Maresca added. "We tried with Palmer in that position, we tried with Nkunku away at Brighton – it didn't work. So in the last week, we tried with Pedro in that position, and we found that it can work. I thought he was very good away at Aston Villa. He can give us depth. He's not just coming to receive the ball in the feet," Maresca added. "He also likes to attack the depth, which is something that Cole and Christopher struggle to do."

Prior to the game against Southampton, approximately 100 Chelsea fans held banners and chanted slogans protesting the club's ownership. It has been nearly three years since the BlueCo consortium led by Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali acquired the club. "The only thing I can say is that the fans now have to trust," Maresca said. "We are going in the right direction. Since we started, we have been in the top four most of the time. The fans have to trust the players. They are working hard every day, trying to bring the club to the Champions League."