Cole Palmer, penalty master: The experts explain the secrets behind his prowess

Cole Palmer’s answer to almost every question about penalties is the same: he doesn’t have an approach, doesn’t think about it, doesn’t do anything special. “I’m actually not even joking,” he told the BBC’s Football Daily podcast last summer. His own mother fared no better in Amazon Prime Video’s 2025 documentary The New Generation: “What do you think goes through your mind?” she asked. Palmer shrugged: “Score. What else am I gonna think?”

The nonchalance is part of the act, but the numbers are deadly serious. After converting spot kicks against Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the past fortnight, Palmer has scored 18 of 19 Premier League penalties, a conversion rate of 94.7 per cent that places him behind only Raul Jimenez, Matt Le Tissier and Yaya Toure among players with at least 11 attempts. His first 12 in the competition were perfect, equalling Jimenez’s competition record, and 14 of his 19 have sent the goalkeeper the wrong way.

So how does a 23-year-old who claims not to practise routines become one of the most reliable takers in English top-flight history? The Athletic assembled specialists in biomechanics, psychology, goalkeeping and penalty analysis to reverse-engineer the Palmer method.

The foundation, according to Ben Lyttleton, author of Twelve Yards: The Art and Psychology of the Perfect Penalty Kick, is narrative. Palmer’s first four Chelsea goals came from the spot, instantly branding him “the penalty guy” inside Stamford Bridge and in opposition video rooms. “That changes the narrative around every penalty he will take after that,” Lyttleton says. “Goalkeepers study him, but he keeps changing the script.”

Palmer has never aimed the same direction more than three times in succession, making patterns almost impossible to detect. More unusually, he appears to merge two schools of thought. Traditional coaching divides penalty styles into goalkeeper-dependent (wait for the keeper, then react) and goalkeeper-independent (pick a spot and rely on power). Palmer’s rapid, fluid run-up points to the latter, yet he still freezes keepers 74 per cent of the time.

“He’s not slowing down, he’s not stuttering, but something in his body shape is still making keepers go early,” Lyttlington notes. Palmer admits he occasionally changes his mind mid-run—normally taboo for infrequent takers—yet his biomechanics protect him.

Archit Navandar, assistant professor of biomechanics at Madrid’s Polytechnic University, isolates the moment Palmer’s planted foot pivots outward a split-second before contact. “That micro-rotation opens his hips and allows him to redirect the ball across goal,” Navandar explains. “Only elite takers like Harry Kane have that late ankle mobility.”

The strike itself is ruthlessly simple. Palmer hits the ball’s equator, producing a low, spin-free trajectory that reaches the corner before a keeper can set. His long run-up and full back-swing transfer maximum momentum; Navandar likens the motion to a golf drive or a cricket six, where timing the supporting foot’s placement is everything. “Too close and you lose power, too far and you lose accuracy,” he says. Palmer’s chest also arches, adding hip-extension torque “like swinging an iron instead of a putter.”

Accuracy is backed by ferocity. Athletic goalkeeping analyst Matt Pyzdrowski clocks Palmer among the hardest strikers from 12 yards. “He doesn’t hop or stutter like Bruno Fernandes or Raul Jimenez, so there’s no tell,” Pyzdrowski says. “But the velocity is so high keepers simply can’t cover the corner even when they guess right.” Tottenham’s Guglielmo Vicario, Manchester City’s Ederson, Liverpool’s Alisson and Bournemouth’s Djordje Petrovic all chose correctly; none laid a glove on the shot.

Sports psychologist Dan Abrahams believes the mental piece is equally decisive. High stakes plus sky-high expectation can trigger intrusive thoughts; Palmer’s solution is to embrace, rather than fight, the pressure. “Past success can either inflate confidence or invite fear of the inevitable miss,” Abrahams says. “Cole’s body language and his four conversions since returning from injury suggest the former.”

Indeed, after Mads Hermansen finally stopped one for Leicester, Palmer altered nothing. “He doubled down on the same technique,” Lyttleton says. “That psychological resilience is what separates good penalty takers from great ones.”

Palmer’s swagger crystallised in May 2024 when, with Chelsea trailing Tottenham 3-2 in stoppage time, he chipped a Panenka into the vacant net to complete a remarkable comeback. He had tipped friends and team-mates the day before; even his father told him to pipe down. “I thought, I’ve told everyone I’m gonna chip it, so I might as well,” Palmer grinned. The ball floated in, and Stamford Bridge erupted.

Eleven of his 19 penalties have either levelled or put Chelsea ahead, including 97th-minute equalisers against both Manchester clubs. With England’s World Cup squad looming, Lyttleton argues Palmer’s spot-kick supremacy should weigh heavily in selection debates.

Whether Palmer ever discloses the hidden code remains unlikely. Ask him for the secret and the shrug returns: pick a side, smash it, don’t overthink it. Thanks to a blend of biomechanical precision, psychological steel and uncluttered self-belief, that simple formula has made Cole Palmer the most lethal penalty taker of the modern Premier League era.