Chelsea teenager Estevao shows promise in Palmer absence

After Chelsea's star man Cole Palmer was ruled out in the warm-up of the Premier League encounter at West Ham, teenage sensation Estevao Willian stepped up to show why Blues fans have been so excited about his arrival.

The 18-year-old replaced England international Palmer for his first Premier League start, but gave the ball away with a flick for Lucas Paqueta's stunning sixth-minute opener for the hosts.

Yet that didn't faze the Brazilian forward as he proved why Chelsea were willing to pay £29m to bring him to Stamford Bridge, most notably with his first-half assist for Enzo Fernandez as the Fifa Club World Cup winners eventually cruised to a 5-1 victory.

That smart run and pull-back for Fernandez's close-range finish made Estevao, at the age of 18 years and 120 days, the youngest Chelsea player to assist a goal in the Premier League.

"He needs to adapt, he needs to make many mistakes to understand how the Premier League is different to Brazil," Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca told BBC Sport.

"We conceded after he did the flick. He needs to understand, but he is a fantastic player."

Estevao chose Chelsea despite interest from many of Europe's leading clubs, including Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain and Manchester City.

He fits the classic "wonderkid" characterisation to a tee, joining the Blues off the back of much hype and tipped to achieve great things.

Estevao gave a glimpse of his talent in the Club World Cup, where he scored in the quarter-finals as former club Palmeiras lost to Chelsea, and first impressions of him in England have been positive.

"I think he's young but he showed that he's very mature," said Chelsea team-mate Marc Cucurella.

"He made very good decisions and all the new players, all the new signings came here to help the team, to bring something good, good energy, good talent. I think we have an amazing squad, so I hope we can do good things this season."

Former England and Chelsea goalkeeper Rob Green added that, for Estevao, it looked like it was "just a joy to play and go out there and express yourself".

"It looked like he played where the shirt didn't weigh anything and there was no expectation," he told Sky Sports.

"There's a real freedom and a brilliant thing, having had time at Chelsea, you play with so many international players and the different ways they approach the game, going into the game, on the team bus.

"Brazilian players, it's like it's a party. It's there to be enjoyed. Let's go and play football, the excitement's there, let's go and enjoy it."

Chelsea were without their brightest star in Palmer against West Ham, but still excelled.

Maresca revealed the 23-year-old "was not 100% in the past four or five days" and a niggling groin issue ruled him out of Friday's fixture.

"He tried the warm-up, but he felt something," he added. "So we prefer not to take any risk to get worse - and we'll see in the next hours if it's something important or not."

Maresca admitted his side are "much better" when Palmer is available, but the Blues have proved they can perform well without him.

He said: "The ones that they say that we are just a Cole team, for sure, Cole is our best player, no doubt. For sure, when we have Cole, we are a much, much, much better team."

Cucurella also highlighted how Estevao helped fill the gap left by the "difficult" situation caused by Palmer's late withdrawal.

"It's difficult because we practice one thing, at the end we need to change very fast," said the Spanish left-back.

"But I think Estevao, in this case, played an amazing game. I think it's very important because we have a good squad, all of us, we are ready at any time and we are very happy because we showed we have a good team."