You can say that about any player. Pogba looks like shit in Mourinho's system. Kante looks like shit in Sarri's system. Let's see what Messi can do outside of the Barca system.
Oh no. Cristiano Ronaldo is a very adaptable guy, and he was arguably the top or second top player in the planet for several years. Cantona was a system player, but Henry wasn't. It's not hard to make the distinction. I'm not trying to be dismissive of Pulisic. Sadly people here are so defensive that anything short of claiming each one of our players in Europe is the next Modric/Messi/Leva makes you be judged as "negative." My point is simply that Puli needs the right coach to be named after Sarri is sacked, and it cannot be a guy like Mourinho, because he'll have little use for our guy. And we're deceiving ourselves if we say Pulisic has looked as good under Favre as he did under Tuchel. Please.
You don't drop 3 goals at home in the second half and expect to win the title. BM is catching up fast. I won't be shocked if BM walks away with the title this season.
I think Pulisic looks very similar, but expectations changed. And if Henry and Ronaldo are the only guys you can name then I’m not sure what your point is. That Pulisic is human?
He has been spewing this stuff for a while. He looked really good against Mexico in 2016. Not sure how to explain that.
They're a weird team. They seem fragile to me kinda of like Spurs or Arsenal. I fully expect BM to overtake them for the title.
Pulisic adapted more under tinkering Teuchel than any other manager he’s played for, and arguably looked his best doing it.
They are right where their shareholders want them to be, relevant while selling their best players for insane amounts of money. Winning the league would be a bonus.
Even with three goals, they've got the third fewest goals against in the league. Yes, the defense has had two bad games in a row, but they've got a somewhat easier schedule going forward, with 8 of the last 13 against bottom half teams. Two things probably determine this: Bayern v BvB, April 6th, and Borussia Monchengladbach's hosting both of them before the end of the season. Bayern also still have to face Leipzig and Frankfurt, which Dortmund don't. But it's better than letting in six. Just sayin'
I actually don't think Pulisic fits the system player claim. Even with Teuchel he played multiple positions. Meaning if the system was built around him he wouldn't be playing right mid, right winger, left winger and even right back. He also wouldn't play center attacking mid for the US and look good. I would think a system player would basically play the same position in the same formation with similar tactics and the further away from any of the those the worse that player would look. Not sure about Messi. He does seem to fit a lot of the criteria but he is also so good at that spot why would anyone play him at right back?
Pulisic's issue isn't going to be the system, it's going to be the expectation. He is now a $75 million* player and with that he is expected to play regularly AND be the best player in the XI more than occasionally. Plus he's not a teenager anymore, so signs of what he might become will no longer be enough to justify his inclusion in the first team. He needs to produce now, or at least that will be the mindset of Chelsea fans. Personally I am nervous for him. He's going to a club that doesn't have a recent history of developing youngish player or having a club wide systematic plan for what they are doing. He now walks into this coming from the exact opposite situation at Dortmund, who have consistently developed youngish/ not high priced players with a systematic plan that's bigger than anyone manager. It's going to be a massive test for him. *I have seen it reported as both dollars and pounds not sure which it is.
Transfermarkt has it at 64 mill Euros which is a little more than 72 mill USD at current exchange. But, yeah, the expectations are going to be higherand the environment less nurturing at Chelsea, I suspect.
Chelsea fans are well aware that a good part of his price has to do with potential & finances, and not with what he's expected to produce right away.
Pulisic's issue is that Sarri isn't going to be there. Hazard won't be there, and CFC is a tire fire right now with a bunch of mismatched parts and a scattergun recruitment policy that, combined with a total lack of managerial continuity, results in them being, at best, a boom-or-bust outfit. He's going to walk into a locker room that has quit on their manager 3 times in 4 years.
It's going to depend greatly on the sort of first impression he makes on the primae donnae players who run that club. If they don't like him as a person, they'll do to him what they do to coaches.
That's not how it works. If Chelsea are struggling next season, and he isn't playing well Puli is going to get blamed. Fair or not that's what will happen.
I expect him to play well, and more so in comparison to the other guys there. So he's going to earn the time to improve and establish himself. What worries me the most is: a) getting a coach who has no idea how to use Pulisic, so he looks poor because he's being misused; b) the player clique ruling over the roost with a weak manager, which means if they don't like Puli, they'll sabotage him (think Dahoud rather passing back than passing to CP); c) the club hurrying up and buying a bunch of players that don't go well together, so the whole team looks like crap and, indeed, the most expensive guys get the bulk of the blame. But let's remain positive. In soccer, six months is a long, long time.
Its going to be this. Assuming that whoever replaces Sarri is more flexible in terms of how they set up the team, it may be less of an issue, but CFC's recruitment is like a kid playing career mode on FIFA; there's probably not any rhyme or reason to it. They'll buy random names people have heard of and assume that whoever's coaching can put it together into a functioning team. Sarri's not capable of doing it. They have the pieces to have a perfectly good team, but he's so stupidly rigid in his setup that he's going to get himself fired before April because he insists on playing Jorginho at the base of his midfield and shunting off the best DM in the world to play a B2B role on the right. You can predict his sub patterns with pitiful ease. If CFC were smart they'd fire Sarri and write off the rest of this season as lost, identify a better candidate and plan accordingly. Maybe look at the 2 full squads of promising players they have on loan for guys that can help them. But they'll probably not do that.
INteresting. Apparently Sancho and Pulisic BOTH start against Tottenham today, with Pulisic lining up on the left wing? http://www.espn.com/soccer/lineups?gameId=530635