Pulisic was fine. I agree with the Mehs but only to the extent that he was meh in the (current) most competitive league in the world. Mount had moments of brilliance, but I would say no else played noticeably better than Christian.
He tried but he was getting dispossessed a lot...I don't think he did enough to keep his spot as a starter next week.
According to good old Kicker, Pulisic had 46 ball contacts, 21 passes, 86% good, 35% 1v1. Not sure how many 1v1s he had. Didn't realize Mounts goal was the first Englishman scored goal under an English trainer for Chelsea in the Premier League since 1996. How is that for a specific stat?
I saw the game here and there but I think the reason everyone looked meh (Chelsea) because lampard had them dropped back after the early goal. Not sure why you would drop back against a team similar or less to your level and at home. If you are told to drop back then you don't want to overcommit that much. Thats what happened to Pulisic and rest of team. Defensively, I would give Pulisic big star since he pretty much didn't made any mistakes out there.
I went back to check on finals stats after missing most of the second half. This is what I found on FotMob: Pulisic was rated at 5.5, which was the worst rating of all field players. Stats: 71 minutes 46 touches 86% pass accuracy 21 passes, 18 successful, 2 crosses 0 shots, 0 on target 0 assists 20 duels, 7 won, 13 lost 6 dispossessions (most in match) 1 successful dribble, 5 unsuccessful 2 Aerials won, 1 lost 3 tackles 3 recoveries
After the UEFA Super Cup last year, that also lasted 120 minutes, both Real Madrid and Atletico looked fine, even though they only had 4 and 5 days to recover. Real went on to beat Getafe comfortably 2-0 at home, and Atletico managed a tie to Valencia (a strong team) away, 1-1. So the "they were tired because of the Super Cup" excuse doesn't fly. I think it has more to do with Lampard being unable to match the moves by Rodgers, who astutely noticed Kante is still only half-fit and found a hole in their right side, where Pedro is not exactly a defensive asset and where Azpi is having a bad time. Since the others (Jorginho and Mount, mainly) had to keep moving right to help cover the deficiencies on that side, Pulisic was mainly isolated in his runs, or had support arriving late. No, it wasn't a good day for him, but more than anything I'm seeing a very static Lampard that is going to get figured out in the next few weeks. Also, the racism crap was just the one directed at Tammy before this game, but also at Zouma and Willian during this one, although Twitter now is doing a better job of removing the postings of the hooligans right away, and is starting to ban accounts, causing such people to move to places like Gab.
Great point about Kante .... against Liverpool it was if there were two of him on the field and against Leicester he looked human and whole midfield suffered as a result. If Azpi continues to have sub par matches I wonder how Lampard has him wear the armband.
IMHO CP had one shot & it was on target - it bounced off the head of Schmeichel. I couldn't find the play but here are CP's touches from the match vs Leicester City
You are correct. The announcers missed that, even on the replay. Puli got to it in the mixer after a rebound and tapped it off the side of the goalie’s face.
one more thing to note about yesterday's game is the fact that Emerson & CP are creating a nice relationship on the left flank - I couldn't find the video of some of the plays I saw in the match, so I will use this video to emphasize my point a bit 1162004737375526912 is not a valid tweet id
Well, do your criteria apply to the rest of the team as well? Not many would start, I think. That hole was primarily the result of Mount NOT offering support on the right. The heat map here shows that Mount's preferred location (across the entire game, of course) was right near the left touch line at the top of the attacking third. Early in the game, he occupied the center right attacking space. Later, he essentially displaced Pulisic on the left. That is one reason why CP had so little to do. At least that is how I read it.
so the question that should be asked is whether Mount simply plays over where CP plays best and he is going to overshadow him and diminish what the team is capable of? It is noteworthy that Mount was not on the field during the Liverpool match where Pulisic played so well. And yet Mount's goal came from his pressure in the center - not out wide left where Pulisic naturally plays. I need to go back and look at the heat map from that match where Kovacic plays in behind Pulisic and see where they lined up in that one.
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...uper-Cup-2018-2019-Liverpool-Chelsea#heatmaps pretty clear that during the Super Cup that Kovacic tucked in behind Pulisic and Pulisic played further forward and went inside as well much more. I wonder if half of this games issue with CP is Mount simply trying to play where CP plays and that is adversely impacting him and the team. Will be interesting to see what happens.
I think Mount tended to play down the left slot at Vitesse if memory serves. And playing in a 4-3-3 he tended to be off center one side or the other - not that Chelski can't/won't adjust that.
Agreed with that..Williams look slow and it could be the only thing that keeps CP in the starting 11 next week....CP also had a good game against Liverpool so maybe that earns him another game before dropping him. I could see Lampard starting Barkley through the center and Mount out wide.
You're right that very few Chelsea players had a good game but CP had by far the most dispossession among the attackers..He was getting his pocket picked too easily with not enough success-runs to balance out the give-aways.....I hope he can improves on that. I hope he start next week but Lampard who is under pressure, might go with more experienced players.
Liverpool might be a PL opponent, but the Super Cup game against them was really a glorified exhibition; none of the hard, bone-crunching tackling and tight marking you see in the PL, among other things. I think that's why Pulisic had a good performance in the Super Cup but hasn't done much of anything in the two PL games played so far. At least in this debut season, I don't see him scoring a goal in an actual PL game like the (offsides) one he almost scored against' pool in the Super Cup.
Watching it live, it was hard to distinguish whether that was a shot or he was trying to step past KS. To me, that's not a shot. I understand why you both believe it should count as a shout though. The people doing the stats apparently didn't believe he was making a shooting movement, but instead trying to knock the ball past the keeper.
OMG. I have discovered the heat maps and all the other stats on that site. That should keep me plenty busy this winter. Very cool stuff.