Christian Pulisic Thread

This is rubbish! Trust me 'English fans' couldn't give a sh*t where their players/managers are from, they could be green and from Mars as long as they are producing! If you actually lived in the UK you would realise that that little thought is given to a players nationality once part of the team they are ALL hero worshipped - unless of course the team is doing badly! Its 'that side of the pond' that seems to have 'issues' about American players in Europe.

 

We're talking about a guy just transferring to England from somewhere else, like Puli is doing. When some Spanish guy is about to arrive from the Bundesliga or some Portuguese guy has just been bought from a La Liga club, they don't show the same blasé attitude they show when a Yank is arriving.

Once they're part of the team, yes, it's about production. But I was clearly writing about how the fans react when the player is still a rumor or a fresh buy.

 

Yes, I do remember Spurs fans being totally supportive of Clint Dempsey right after his transfer and during the season when he was their 3rd leading scorer in all comps-oh wait, no they weren't, they acted like morons about it and showed a clear bias toward inferior (at the time) options.

English fans might not care about any other nationality, but American field players are treated with a healthy dose of skepticism and low-level hostility there.

There are CFC fans right now declaring Pulisic overrated BTL on the Guardian, talking about how he's going to fail there. 6 months before he even shows up. If CFC had blown $60m on...I don't know, Mathias De Ligt and Luuk De Jong, do you think that's happening?

 

So, now that Sarri seems to be blowing up and pulling a Mourinho, what do you think the odds are that he is still there by the time Pulli gets there? Will he end up benched under a new coach as a very pricey bust (through no real fault of his own)?

Gotta say I’m not liking what I’m seeing from Chelsea, especially if they crash out of the champions league spots as they seem intent on doing.

 

It's literally the most predictable outcome.

 

There are no Guardian comments on Chelsea stories right now and haven't been for about 5 days. And they seem far more skeptical about Higuain than Pulisic.

I can understand any skepticism though given their recent record of failed signings, especially when it's a player that isn't starting in a regular basis for a comparative team.

Oh, and I bet a lot of the skeptics are American Chelsea fans.

 

The comments I saw were under the match report for the Arsenal game on Saturday.

 

Just paged through 1,488 comments under the match report and 2 subsequent stories and found 2 negative comments.

A Chelsea fan asked why they spent so much money on someone who is not starting games instead of trying to keep Hudson-Odoi, and a Man City fan called his signing a publicity stunt aimed at winning over American fans.

By contrast there are dozens of posts criticizing the potential acquisition of Higuain based on his age.

 

Chelsea has not had a quality forward since Drogba. They do seem to try to off load or, at least, not play young forwards. Batshuyi, Odoi and the others escape me. But going to Italy to buy Higuian seems silly. They have quality midfielders to feed forwards, give a kid a shot.

 

Costa had two good years there out of his three, but then he is not everybody's cup of tea. He has failed to recapture his magic at Leti, although he does create space for Griezmann.

 

Wha...?

Diego Costa scoring rate was higher than Drogba's.

 

Absolute rubbish! You seem to have an 'over inflated' ego about 'Americans', trust me, I am a football 'nut' I have been for 40+ years, I live in England - I AM the horses mouth and I am telling you - English football fans care about ONE thing and ONE thing only and that is success on the pitch, that's why they don't give a stuff about the nationality of their players and or coach's. Chelsea Football Club has players, coach's and fans from across the globe you think just because he is American they are going to treat him differently!! He WILL be worshipped as long as he performs well, German and Argentinian players have been worshipped at clubs in this country (including Chelsea) and we have had wars with these nations. Hell even English players are worshipped by the Scots if they play (and perform) for their club and believe me when it comes to football (any sports really) the Scots HATE the English.

 

When Puli was rumored to go to L'pool there were posts on one of their boards commenting how Yanks didn't know how to play football and because of that CP couldn't be that good. We can read English, we're familiar with what the English fans say when an American player is rumored to go to one of their teams. No one can come and tell us we didn't read what we did read.

 

I’ll admit it’s kind of a blast from the past here, getting talked down to by an Englishman about things I’ve read with my own eyes. Kind of proves the point, innit

 

Then perhaps I’m thinking of the BTL when the deal was announced.

 

If loads of fans talk down Americans then that proves it. However if just a few - well I don't doubt we'd all like to be lumped in with a few on BigSoccer.

 

They seem to be using the same consultant as FC Dallas only with way more money to waste.

 

I agree with this. I don't get much involved in English football anymore because there aren't any American playing there. I've gotten into Bundesliga big time and find that it's really an enjoyable league. I don't miss the prem at all. Hwvr, I always thought their fans were fine. Calling somebody "antiscore" e.g., doesn't show bias against American players when the person in question isn't scoring - hardly the fans' fault.

 

It wasn't "Antiscore." It was "Dozy Antiscore." And in England "dozy" is not really just sleepy.

 

Pulisic was starting every other game at Dortmund for awhile. He's competing with Raphaël Guerreiro it seems. He came on for Guerreiro at 76' against Leipzig, for example. I would say that Chelsea is a step down from Dortmund, but obviously still a top club. I hope for Pulisic's sake Chelsea can hold on to a top 4 spot and get Champs League next season.

 

For our purposes, perhaps, but not for his.

 

Don't want to wander too far off track, but one of the interesting things about soccer, especially for forwards - and life, for everyone - is how important self-confidence is.

One Premier League play I remember is Altidore banging into a heavyweight defender, bulling his way through and scoring, only to have the goal called back for a foul. Then, one by one, the goalless games mounted, but even that single goal might have changed Altidore's career trajectory.

Or not. Life doesn't provide satisfactory answers to our many 'What if ...' questions, unfortunately.

 

What do you mean?

 

I had meant Frenkie de Jong, not Luuk. And I mean that their fanbase would be a lot less skeptical if CFC bought one of those two guys than they are of Pulisic.

Which, okay. There's definitely an argument to be made that they should be skeptical of Pulisic. I personally don't get why they'd spend $60m on Pulisic when they already have extremely highly rated youth players they never bother to play.

But the skepticism of Pulisic crosses into "they're buying him to market to Americans" or some of the other "Americans suck at soccer" tropes which not only aren't true, but wouldn't be said otherwise. My point was that if they had bought de Jong, CFC fans or general English football fans wouldn't be like "they're obviously trying to sell shirts to the Dutch" or "the Netherlands hasn't qualified for a major tournament in 5 years ergo these two guys suck".

 

Yeah, but they probably would complain that the Eredivisie sucks and he hasnot shown what Pogba/Mbappe etc. had when being bought.
Come to think about it they probably would have some point