Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has drawn criticism for praising the abilities of Cole Palmer and suggesting he has been the Premier League’s best player over Mohamed Salah
Jamie Carragher doubled down on his praise of Cole Palmer, despite being criticised for labelling the England star the Premier League’s best player of the last 18 months.
The former Liverpool defender drew flak for highlighting the Chelsea talisman over Mohamed Salah. Reds supporters went so far as to suggest the comments came with bias after Carragher hit out at the Egyptian for playing out his contract dispute in the public arena.
Palmer scored twice on Sunday against Tottenham and has helped inspire Chelsea to second place in the Premier League. The 22-year-old drew more praise from Carragher, who watched the Blues’ win over Spurs, and the pundit was criticised as a result.
“Be Serious @Carra23. Trying way too hard,” said one X user after quoting a segment of Carragher’s words. The ex-defender didn’t take kindly to the response.
“Maybe you try harder at putting the full quote out!” replied Carragher, hightlighting the poist. “I said he’s been the best player over 18 months which he has in my eyes.
“And you probably know I said that but your desperation for likes & retweets knows no bounds!! Your account is so bad, please stop following me”
Carragher has certainly not been deterred from lauding Palmer. The former Man City star saw comparisons to Eden Hazard and Gianfranco Zola as the Sky Sports commentator attempted to explore Palmer’s status at Chelsea and in European football.
He said: “He gets the penalty and he’s involved in the [Enzo] Fernandez goal as well, there’s three or four players around him. That’s what great players do – you fear when he’s on the ball.
“I loved him last season and he’s started this season really well. I think I made a comment a few weeks ago that if you look at his last 18 months at Chelsea, I don’t think there’s been a player in the Premier League who’s performed better than him.
“And he hasn’t been playing for the best team. I mean they look like one of the best teams in the league right now.
“But when you think of Chelsea over the years and some of the great attacking players they’ve had, and they’ve had some great attacking players, when you think of those flair players I think of [Gianfranco] Zola and [Eden] Hazard, I think he’s probably done more than Zola in these 18 months.
“Zola is probably going to go down as one of the greatest players to have ever played for Chelsea and he’s probably on that sort of level of what I’ve seen Hazard do although maybe a longer period of time, for four of five years.
“But right now the way it’s going, if he can take Chelsea to a title whether it’s this season or the next two or three seasons he’s going to go down as one of the greatest players to ever play for Chelsea if he keeps doing what he’s doing.
“He’s a very, very special player and not just in the Premier League but in European or world football.”
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