Chelsea complete stunning £42.5m move for Man City starlet Cole Palmer

Chelsea have completed the stunning £42.5m move for Manchester City rising star Cole Palmer.

Palmer, 21, shot to prominence in 2021 with his first Premier League start and Champions League goal for the Blues, a year after making his senior debut for the club. A run of injuries and lack of form had seen his career stall over the last 18 months, but goals in the Community Shield and Super Cup showed a player with renewed confidence after playing a part in England winning the Under-21 European Championship in summer.

The departure of Riyad Mahrez had opened up a more prominent role in Pep Guardiola's squad for Palmer, but the player is instead off to Stamford Bridge after Chelsea tabled a bid of £40m with £2.5m in add-ons that the Blues felt was too good to turn down given the circumstances. Unsurprisingly given the relationship between the two clubs, there are no further clauses in the transfer.

Palmer's sale will take City sales for the summer beyond £150m, offsetting their purchases of just over £200m. It also means that the club will have raised nearly £100m from the sale of academy players in this window alone.

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Such a transfer will prompt questions of two of the best academies in the country though. Chelsea's decision to splash serious money on a City raid will raise eyebrows, while Palmer has the potential to hurt his boyhood club like no other academy graduate has if he can fulfil his potential under Mauricio Pochettino.