Cole Palmer rediscovered his scoring touch with a first-half hat trick as Chelsea defeated Wolves 3–1 at Molineux, stretching Liam Rosenior’s perfect start in the Premier League to four straight wins.
After a difficult spell marked by injuries, a lack of goals and reports of unrest, the England international looked back to his best.
The forward, once the team’s main source of goals, now appears part of a more balanced Chelsea side full of promise.
Two of Palmer’s goals came from the penalty spot after careless challenges by the Wolves defence.
He calmly converted both before completing his treble with a clinical finish at the end of a slick team move. The hat trick made him Chelsea’s all-time leading hat-trick scorer in the Premier League era with four, moving ahead of club greats such as Frank Lampard, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Didier Drogba.
While Rosenior’s side still have a long way to go to match the success achieved by those legends, this performance further underlined the positive impact of the new head coach as Chelsea controlled the contest against struggling opposition.
Wolves, managed by Rob Edwards, were poor in the opening half but improved after the break. However, they were already three goals down in heavy rain at Molineux and had left themselves too much to do.
Tolu Arokodare pulled one back to give the home fans something to cheer, but the defeat leaves Wolves still 18 points adrift of safety and staring at relegation to the Championship.
Chelsea’s opener came after 13 minutes when Matt Doherty conceded a needless penalty by tripping João Pedro inside the box. Palmer stepped up and calmly slotted the ball into the bottom corner.
The visitors continued to press, with Marc Cucurella and Moisés Caicedo seeing efforts blocked, while Enzo Fernández was denied by José Sá. The Wolves goalkeeper also produced a sharp save to keep out Malo Gusto at the near post.
Wolves then gifted another penalty when Yerson Mosquera shoved Pedro in the back inside the area, allowing Palmer to double Chelsea’s lead from the spot.
The third goal came from open play. Fernández collected the ball on the left and released Cucurella on the overlap. The Spaniard’s cut-back was emphatically finished by Palmer, completing his hat trick before half-time.
Wolves fans felt aggrieved by some decisions, including a penalty appeal for Mateus Mané that was waved away, and a yellow card shown to debutant Adam Armstrong for a foul on Andrey Santos.
There was more urgency from the hosts after the interval. Mané struck the post with a curling effort, and from the resulting corner, Arokodare poked home to end Wolves’ long wait for a league goal since January 7.
But it proved only a consolation as Chelsea saw out the victory comfortably.
