Arsenal can repeat Chelsea's Cole Palmer trick to take lead over Pep Guardiola

Arsenal could repeat the trick that saw Chelsea sign Cole Palmer from Manchester City along with another young Premier League star.

Palmer scored his 12th goal of the 2024/25 Premier League season against Fulham on Boxing Day, with the Englishman having flourished since arriving at Stamford Bridge.

The decision to let Palmer go is seen as one of Pep Guardiola's biggest mistakes as City boss, but if the Catalan is not careful he could sleepwalk and make a similar mistake again.

James McAtee is currently rotting on the City bench, having played just two minutes of Premier League football for the Blues, with his run in the starting XI currently non-existent.

This is despite City currently being in the midst of a record run – for all the wrong reasons – of one win in 13 matches.

Across all competitions, his minutes haven't been much better, as McAtee has only started twice for City this season – both Carabao Cup matches.

It's a position Palmer found himself in a few years ago, with the City Academy product starting two matches this season before his departure from Etihad.

Both of these departures came after City won the 2022/23 Premier League title, meaning Palmer was happy to leave the club in search of first-team football elsewhere.

It's a route McAtee could look to take himself and if Arsenal were looking for a relatively cheap home team option, the 22-year-old could be their man.

A player doesn't come out of City's Academy if he doesn't have real talent, as we've seen with Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Liam Delap in recent years.

And given that Arsenal have struggled to find options in the final third, with Bukayo Saka and Martin Odeaggard having both spent time out of the team injured, the versatile McAtee could prove the ideal solution.

Oddly, even though he has been reluctant to use him this season, Guardiola has only ever spoken highly of McAtee.

Commenting in August, Guardiola said: “He knows all the processes. I think his time at Sheffield [United] helped him a lot in making him understand how difficult football is. To earn points. It helped him a lot.

“When you play in small spaces, attack the goal, McAtee has that quality in small spaces. That's why I told Txiki that I didn't want to lend him because we need him.