Cole Palmer's Twitch Surprise: EA Sports FC 27 Stream

Cole Palmer has spent the opening weeks of the season tormenting defenders. On Tuesday afternoon, he managed to wind up a video game giant instead.

The 24-year-old Chelsea playmaker casually fired up Twitch and, without warning, gave thousands of viewers an early look at EA Sports FC 27. No sponsorship splash screen. No official countdown. Just Palmer, a controller, and an embargo-shattering stream.

For over an hour he tore through Ultimate Team packs and jumped into matches, broadcasting content that wasn’t supposed to be seen for days. The global release is set for September 25, with early access only kicking in on September 18, but Palmer skipped the queue entirely — and the developers noticed.

The mood shifted in an instant. The stream suddenly went dark. Palmer’s channel was swiftly scrubbed of every trace of EA Sports FC 27 after a copyright request. One moment he was packing cards, the next he was off the air.

Before the plug was pulled, though, the whole thing veered into comedy.

EA Sports FC’s official account dropped into the chat mid-broadcast, offering a light-hearted but pointed reminder. “Errr Cole, weren't we going to do this a bit later? We'll be live at 6pm UK!” came the message, a playful nudge that underlined the problem: Palmer had jumped the gun on the game’s own launch plans.

The midfielder didn’t sulk. Once the ban landed, he went straight to Instagram, turning the situation into a tongue-in-cheek appeal. Tagging both Twitch and EA, he wrote: “I was only giving the people what they wanted... unban me pls.” On another platform, reacting to a post about his suspension, he kept it short and defiant: “We back soon.”

If the ban amused him, his in-game rating did not.

During the ill-fated stream, Palmer discovered his overall rating had slipped from 87 to 85. He couldn’t hide his frustration. “I need a word with EA. They took two ratings off me. I had one leg for ten months last season, what do you want me to do?” he said, half joking, half genuinely aggrieved.

He then zeroed in on his pace, baffled to find himself slower than Chelsea team-mate Morgan Rogers. “76 pace? I don't know how he's got more pace than me but, EA sometimes, man, they're a bit crazy,” he added, leaning into the disbelief that every modern player seems to feel when the new numbers drop.

Behind the humour sits a serious backdrop. Palmer’s references to “one leg” reflect a bruising campaign last season, when a groin problem and a fractured toe kept dragging him back to the treatment room. Those injuries blunted his influence in the early months and left him chasing fitness rather than form.

On Chelsea’s pre-season tour in Sydney, he admitted he pushed too hard, too soon. “The first few months, with me being injured, I just wanted to go out and play, which I probably shouldn't have done,” he said. “Obviously, I couldn't play how I wanted to play. It was a bad season, personally, with injuries and stuff, but I feel good now. The seven weeks obviously helped. I'm ready to go again.”

He even went abroad in search of answers. “I went to Sweden or Denmark, one of those countries, to see a doctor. We did speak about (surgery), but I didn't end up getting it,” he revealed, outlining just how far he was willing to travel to fix his body.

Now, the difference is obvious. With those problems apparently behind him, Palmer has exploded into the new campaign. He and Rogers have already stacked up four goal contributions each in the Premier League, a joint statement that their partnership can carry serious weight at Stamford Bridge.

The Twitch account may be in limbo. The banter with EA might rumble on. But Palmer’s real platform is the pitch, and his early-season form in the Premier League and Carabao Cup has given Chelsea a sharp edge.

If he keeps playing at this level, the only rating that will matter is the one he’s writing every weekend, in real time, under the lights.