'PlayStation' Palestra runs like a panther and can help Chelsea

"He seems like a player built on the PlayStation," Cagliari head coach Fabio Pisacane told Sky in Italy recently. "Ninety-nine per cent acceleration and so on. He is handsome even when he runs. He looks like a panther, like a leopard." That man is Marco Palestra. Even his name means gym in Italian so perhaps it should be no surprise that the 21-year-old wide player has been identified to bring the athleticism that Xabi Alonso wants to see on the flanks at Chelsea. But there is more to the signing from Atalanta than that.

Palestra is versatile, capable of playing on either flank, as a full-back…