LONDON: Cole Palmer scored four goals to put Chelsea within touching distance of the Premier League’s top six after a 6-0 win over Everton on Monday.
The England international has been a shining light in an otherwise disappointing campaign for the Blues and moved level with Manchester City striker Erling Haaland’s 20 Premier League goals in the race for the Golden Boot.
Palmer killed the game as a contest as he completed his hat-trick inside 30 minutes before Nicolas Jackson also struck before half-time.
A penalty from Palmer and Alfie Gilchrist’s first goal for his boyhood club rounded off the scoring in the second half.
Despite an eight-game unbeaten Premier League run, Chelsea remain in ninth but are now just three points adrift of sixth-placed Newcastle with a game in hand to come.
And they will head into Saturday’s FA Cup semifinal against City confident they can end the holders’ quest for a second consecutive treble.
A demoralizing defeat leaves Everton still perilously placed just two points above the relegation zone.
The Toffees appealed against a two-point penalty for breaking Premier League sustainability rules on Monday, having also been docked a further six points for another charge this season.
How Everton could do with the boost of recovering some of those lost points as the battle for survival looks set to go down to the wire.
Nottingham Forest visit Goodison Park in a huge relegation six-pointer on Sunday and Sean Dyche’s men will need to improve at both ends of the field to prolong their 70-year stay in the top flight.
The visitors were dealt a blow before kick-off as Dominic Calvert-Lewin missed out due to a hamstring injury.
His deputy Beto spurned a glorious chance to open the scoring when he somehow turned over Seamus Coleman’s cross from point-blank range.
Palmer was not so forgiving at the other end as he made another case to be crowned as the Premier League’s player of the year.
City must regret letting the 21-year-old leave for what now looks like a bargain £40 million ($50 million) in September.
Palmer nutmegged Jarrad Branthwaite before exchanging a neat one-two with Jackson and curling home from the edge of the box to open the scoring.
With Enzo Fernandez absent due to injury, Mauricio Pochettino flanked Palmer and Jackson with Noni Madueke and Mykhailo Mudryk for the first time in his starting line-up.
Everton could not live with the sharpness of that front four and Palmer was left with an easy task to head in his second after Jordan Pickford denied Jackson from a Mudryk cross.
The England goalkeeper then had a moment to forget as he gifted possession to Palmer, who nonchalantly chipped his international teammate on his weaker right foot from midway inside the Everton half.
In contrast to Palmer, Jackson has had an inconsistent first season at Chelsea but produced an excellent touch and finish to fire in his 13th goal of the season on the stroke of half-time.
A routine night for Pochettino’s men was still not without drama when they were awarded a penalty on the hour mark.
Both Madueke and Jackson tried to take over penalty duties before they were forcibly removed by captain Conor Gallagher to hand Palmer the ball.
He duly made it nine out of nine successful spot-kicks this season to take his tally for the season in both Chelsea and City colors to 25.
Academy graduate Gilchrist had only been on the field a matter of seconds when he blasted in the sixth after Pickford parried Ben Chilwell’s effort.
Palmer scores four as improving Chelsea hit Everton for six
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Palmer scores four as improving Chelsea hit Everton for six
- Palmer killed the game as a contest as he completed his hat-trick inside 30 minutes before Nicolas Jackson also struck before half-time
Morocco banish any doubts about ability to host World Cup 2030
- Impressive stadiums, easy transportation links and a well-established tourism infrastructure ensured the 24-team tournament went off without any major hitch and will assuage any doubters about the World Cup in four years’ time
RABAT: Morocco’s successful staging of the Africa Cup of Nations means there should be no skepticism about its ability to co-host the World Cup with Portugal and Spain in 2030, even if Sunday’s final was clouded by a walk-off and defeat for the home team.
Impressive stadiums, easy transportation links and a well-established tourism infrastructure ensured the
24-team tournament went off without any major hitch and will assuage any doubters about the World Cup in four years’ time.
Morocco plans to use six venues in 2030 and five of them were used for the Cup of Nations, providing world-class playing surfaces and a spectacular backdrop.
The Grande Stade in Tangier with a 75,000 capacity is an impressive facility in the northern coastal city, less than an hour’s ferry ride from Spain.
Meanwhile, FIFA President Gianni Infantino condemned "some Senegal players" for the "unacceptable scenes" which overshadowed their victory in the final when they left the pitch in protest at a penalty awarded to Morocco.
African football's showpiece event was marred by most of the Senegal team walking off when, deep into injury time of normal play and with the match locked at 0-0, Morocco were awarded a spot-kick following a VAR check by referee Jean-Jacques Ndala for a challenge on Brahim Diaz.
security personnel at the other end of the stadium, Senegal's players eventually returned to the pitch to see Diaz shoot a soft penalty into the arms of their goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
The match was played at the Stade Moulay Abdellah in the capital Rabat, which has a capacity of 69,500. The attendance for the final was 66,526.
Stadiums in Agadir, Fes and Marrakech were also more than adequate and will now be renovated over the next few years.
But the crowning glory is the proposed 115,000-capacity Stade Hassan II on the outskirts of Casablanca which Morocco hope will be chosen to host the final over Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.
In all, Morocco will spend $1.4 billion on the six stadiums. Also planned is extensive investment in airports, with some 10 Moroccan cities already running direct air links to Europe and many budget airlines offering flights to the country.
An extension of Africa’s only high-speed rail service, which already provides a comfortable three-hour ride from Tangier to Casablanca, further south to Agadir and Marrakech is also planned. Morocco hopes all of this will modernize its cities and boost the economy.
On the field, Morocco will hope to launch a credible challenge for a first African World Cup success, although on Sunday they continued their poor return in the Cup of Nations, where their only triumph came 50 years ago.
They surprised with a thrilling run to the last four at the Qatar 2022 World Cup as the first African nation to get that far and will hope for a similar impact at this year’s finals in North America. They are in Group C with Brazil, Scotland and Haiti.
