Chelsea and Manchester City played out the most entertaining match of the 2023/24 Premier League season with their unreal 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge. The Blues came back from being behind on three separate occasions to scratch their way to get a huge point against the defending champions.
The game also saw some ex-Manchester City players coming back to haunt their former sides. Raheem Sterling was on fire, scoring a goal and troubling his ex-teammates with his threatening runs. But Cole Palmer was a real menace as well with his impressive dribbling and controlling the tempo for Chelsea.
It was Palmer who ended up scoring a vital penalty in added time to ensure that his side got a point. He followed it up with a cold celebration and proved why the Cityzens were wrong to ship him off so easily in the summer.
Manchester City fans are feeling definitely hard-done by the sale of Palmer and are not impressed with what they got in return. Some fans seem to be comparing the ‘trade’ seeing the English winger join the Blues and Mateo Kovacic moving to the Etihad Stadium as the ‘Spaghetti and MacBook’ swap meme.
The origin of the notorious Spaghetti and Macbook swap meme jokes was created by a hilarious gag. A Nigerian influencer Pharaoh took things too far because of his love for Spaghetti. He posted a picture of a ‘swap’ he made because of his craving for Spaghetti, giving away his Apple Macbook in return for two packets of Spaghetti.
This was a joke more than anything else, but it caught up like wildfire on Twitter and became a hilarious meme. It also became the setting point for people to compare horrible trade deals which can be compared to swapping a Macbook for spaghetti.
As a result, some Manchester City supporters feel that them receiving Kovacic in place of Palmer is just as bad a trade deal. Now, it has to be noted that Chelsea did not actually send the Croatian midfielder to the Cityzens as part of their transaction to sign Palmer.
In fact, Kovacic joined Pep Guardiola’s side much earlier in the summer transfer window, when Palmer was still at City and they even played together! However, the working relationship between Chelsea and the Cityzens reportedly warmed up after the Kovacic deal and that played a big part in the Blues being able to sign the English winger later in the window.
The Croatian midfielder didn’t really get a glowing welcome at Stamford Bridge in his second-half in his late second-half cameo in the 4-4 draw. He did his work pretty well, but was unable to influence any goals – while Palmer ended up scoring the late penalty.
City fans are still unimpressed with Kovacic and his performances for them so far. The Croatian midfielder does not have a goal contribution in 14 appearances and has not really been able to add that creative spark from his position.
Palmer, on the other hand, has completely revolutionized Chelsea’s attacking game and is orchestrating their fearless, slick build-up play in the final third. Palmer has already contributed 10 goal contributions (4 goals, 6 assists) in just 12 appearances for Chelsea so far. That is probably why City fans are so annoyed to get an ageing, predictable player like Kovacic in return and end up losing a future gem.