Chelsea 'deserved better' from Champions League defeat to Bayern, says Palmer

Cole Palmer claimed Chelsea "deserved better than they got" as they fell to a 3-1 defeat in their opening Champions League game against Bayern Munich.

The Blues found themselves 2-0 down inside 27 minutes, with Trevoh Chalobah scoring an own goal and Harry Kane netting a penalty.

Palmer halved the deficit with a superb strike in the 29th minute, but could not inspire his team-mates to a comeback, with Kane putting Bayern back in control after the hour.

Making his 100th Chelsea appearance, Palmer - who saw a late goal disallowed for offside - became the first Englishman to net on his Champions League debut for Chelsea, and the first Blues debutant of any nationality to do so since Denis Zakaria against Dynamo Zagreb in November 2022.

And the 23-year-old felt Chelsea could easily have come away from the Allianz Arena with a positive result.

"I thought we played well. We've shown we deserve to play here. The three goals we conceded were our own fault. We had chances," Palmer told DAZN. 

"We broke them down well but some chances we missed. They're a good team. We deserved better than what we got.

"When you make mistakes at the highest level, it's always difficult."

Palmer, who also created two chances and registered a 100% pass accuracy in the final third, has now contributed to 73 goals (45 scored, 28 assisted) since making his debut for Chelsea in September 2023.

Among Premier League players in all competitions during this period, only Mohamed Salah (97) and Erling Haaland (85) have registered more combined goals and assists.

Palmer was one of nine Champions League debutants for Chelsea on Wednesday, along with Robert Sanchez, Malo Gusto, Tosin Adarabioyo, Moises Caicedo, Pedro Neto, Andrey Santos, Estevao, and Joao Pedro. 

It is the highest number of debutants the club has ever fielded in a single match in the competition, while head coach Enzo Maresca was also overseeing his maiden Champions League match.

Indeed, at 25 years and 122 days on average, Chelsea fielded their third-youngest starting XI in a Champions League away match, behind Ajax in October 2019 (25 years, 71 days) and CSKA Moscow in November 2004 (24 years, 323 days), and Maresca felt there were lessons to be taken.

"Overall, the performance was quite good. We started well for 20 minutes and created two or three chances. When we conceded a goal we could have avoided the game changed a bit," Maresca told TNT Sports.

"Once we conceded the third goal, the game changed again. We conceded a goal that killed the game. We were in the game until the end.

"We can learn from this game. First of all, this kind of game needs you to play the right way for 95 minutes, not just for part of the game. At times, we weren't good enough.

"Now it's time to recover because we have a tough game [against Manchester United on Saturday]."