Conor Gallagher and Enzo Fernandez scored the goals that clinched Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace on Monday. But it was no surprise that Cole Palmer had a hand in both.
After laying the ball back for Gallagher to score Chelsea’s second, the 21-year-old played the through-ball for Fernandez to add the third. With six assists to add to his 10 goals, he has been directly involved in nearly 40 per cent of Chelsea’s total this season.
Where would they be without him? It hardly bears thinking about given they sit 10th as it is. But it could easily have been their reality. Palmer was an eleventh-hour signing and might never have arrived at all if not for the influence of Joe Shields.
Chelsea’s co-director of recruitment and talent, formerly of Manchester City and Southampton, is said to have played a significant role in his arrival from the Etihad Stadium, completed for a fee of £42.5m on the final day of the summer transfer window.
The club’s recruitment under Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali has of course thrown up more questions than answers. But there can be no doubting the wisdom of signing Palmer.
Not that it necessarily felt that way at the time.
Palmer had only started three Premier League games under Pep Guardiola. But Shields was convinced of his potential having watched him closely across a nine-year spell at City during which he rose to the role of head of academy recruitment.
His work there, starting out as their academy scouting manager for the south of the UK, earned him a stellar reputation, with Jadon Sancho among the many players he identified and helped to recruit before moving to Southampton and, subsequently, Chelsea.
His belief in Palmer has been emphatically vindicated and the hope for Chelsea is that Romeo Lavia, another former City academy player who Shields previously took to Southampton, will prove similarly successful once he recovers from injury.
Joe Shields was also involved in Chelsea’s £58m move for Romeo Lavia
That would be another boon for Shields, who is only 36 but whose experience in the industry spans two decades and whose journey to the top began at grassroots level in Croydon, south London, in the form of community coaching sessions in Thornton Heath.
“Joe had basically decided coaching wasn’t for him,” says Harry Hudson, who worked at the same sessions and now runs the Kinetic Academy. “So, while I was focusing on coaching, Joe was trying to go his own way, bringing players to the sessions, finding gems.
“It was difficult because, 20 years ago, there weren’t as many roles in football as there are now. There was coaching, but there were no analysts. Agents weren’t as big a thing. Scouting was this back-of-a-fag-packet role nobody really understood.”
Shields was also coming at it as a teenager with no prior professional experience in the industry.
“That made it even harder for him,” adds Hudson. “But Joe just had this incredible passion. He was so interested in being out and active in the community finding players. He got an absolute buzz from it. You could see that when he found someone.
“And then he had his ridiculous ability to spot talent.”
It soon got him noticed. “When you’re finding players, it quickly puts you on the map,” says Hudson. Part-time scouting roles at Crystal Palace and Fulham followed. Even after going full-time at Palace, Shields continued flagging players to Hudson.
One of them was striker Josh Maja, who has gone on to play for Sunderland, Fulham, Bordeaux and West Brom while also representing Nigeria internationally, and who now serves as one of many examples of Shields’ ability to forecast potential.
“Josh had just come out of Fulham’s academy aged 13,” says Hudson. “Joe brought him into a session with us at Kinetic and told me, ‘This player is going to play in the Premier League one day’.
“I did the session and I wasn’t convinced. I said, ‘Joe, I don’t see it, he doesn’t move well’. Joe just said, ‘Trust me, he’s got it. Work with him, develop him and he will be there’.
“He was 100 per cent right but I didn’t see it at the time. I didn’t see that long-term potential in Josh like Joe did. And I like to think of myself as someone who can see talent.”
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Formed after the London riots in 2011, Kinetic Academy use football and education to develop young players from disadvantaged backgrounds such as Southampton’s Joe Aribo
Shields was even more confident on Sancho. He is sometimes credited for “unearthing” the winger, which is not strictly true. But he was certainly aware of his potential from early on.
“When Watford picked up Sancho, Joe said he would be in the England squad in six years,” says Hudson. “I remember saying to him, ‘Are you joking? He’s a kid’. In the end he got there even quicker.”
Shields’ talent-spotting ability and exhaustive knowledge of the younger market have been key to his rise in the industry. “He knows all the good young players and all the kids who have potential,” former Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl told Sky Sports shortly after Shields’ appointment as head of senior recruitment at St Mary’s in 2022. But he is known for his interpersonal skills too.
“Having the foresight to think a player can be great is one thing but convincing a coaching team at a club to actually sign that player is probably the hardest part of any job in recruitment,” says Hudson.
“Especially when we are talking about young players from areas such as south London. A coach might have worked with their group for six months. They know Jimmy will do what he is coached to do.
Palmer has scored 10 goals and assisted another six this season
“So, if a player comes in who is a bit of a wildcard, who does things off the cuff, it is only natural for the coach to have a bias towards the player they already know and trust.
“It is often about having those relationships where you can get coaches and staff members to see the vision you do. That is something Joe has always had quite a unique ability for.”
Those skills are now being applied at the highest level. But, back in south London, Shields is still known for his eagerness to help open doors for young players, coaches and others who might be looking to break into the world of recruitment.
“Even when Joe was working at City, there were players that he referred to us at Kinetic,” says Hudson. “At other times, I would go to him with a player who I thought could get a deal, not at City but somewhere, and he would always be eager to help.
“If he could see the player’s potential, whether it was for Man City or Ipswich Town, he would always try to help the kid and his family out. That’s something that is pretty unusual in football.”
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Shields retains family ties in the area. “He came down to our 10-year anniversary match at Kinetic a few years ago, at Selhurst Park, to see us all and talk to some of the players who have been through our programme,” says Hudson.
“He spoke about players who have been released from professional academies and might want to go into scouting and recruitment, that he would always be there to help them in any way he could.
“He is in a different stratosphere now. He has come a long way from the Croydon days. But I do genuinely believe that is true… It just might take him a few more days to get back to you than it did.”
Such are the demands of his role at Chelsea. Saturday’s return to Manchester City shines a light on the Cole Palmer success story. But, for Shields, the search is now on to deliver more.
Watch Man City vs Chelsea live on Sky Sports Premier League from 5pm on Saturday; kick-off 5.30pm