He's our best player right now, definitely, and has the quality to not look out of place in a R16 WC game. Of course we need something more in attack, otherwise all our rivals have to do is mark Puli out of the game and we're toothless.
Today's assist took Pulisic's production in the 2018-19 season above last season, despite starting far fewer matches. Pulisic's career at Dortmund: 2015-16: 4 starts, 8 sub appearances, 2 goals, 0 assists 2016-17: 22 starts, 21 subs, 5 goals, 13 assists 2017-18: 34 starts, 7 subs, 4 goals, 8 assists 2018-19: 17 starts, 13 subs, 7 goals, 6 assists This is comparable to Guerreiro and Goetze and behind Reus, Sancho, and Alcacer, although Pulisic of course started fewer matches than everybody except Alcacer. Reus: 35 starts, 1 sub, 21 goals, 14 assists Sancho: 31 starts, 12 subs, 13 goals, 20 assists Alcacer: 15 starts, 17 subs, 19 goals, 3 assists Goetze: 26 starts, 8 subs, 7 goals, 8 assists Guerreiro: 21 starts, 11 subs, 6 goals, 6 assists Bruun Larsen: 17 starts, 13 subs, 3 goals, 4 assists Philipp: 11 starts, 12 subs, 2 goals, 3 assists Wolf: 15 starts, 7 subs, 1 goal, 1 assist
Hot take. He never lost what he had. He hasn't gotten worse. Injuries threw off his chance to get in form combined with his manager preferring Larsen over him for some dumbass reason.
Sancho had a ridiculous season. If he keeps that up over the next few years, he will be in the discussion for the ballon d'or. Big "if" though.
The comparison that springs to mind is Dembele. He put together a season of 10 goals and 21 assists before his transfer to Barcelona.
Interestingly, today was only the second time this season that Pulisic has started 3 matches in a row in all competitions. He also started 3 matches in a row (all league) in late September.
He and CP had a LOT of assists that season. Hmmmm. Maybe there was a world-class goal scorer on that team??? Makes a difference, you know.
Can we get rid of "the garden party" as well? Thanks. Awesome for cp to get an assist in his final game. That Sancho reus cp front line is lethal. Too bad Favre seemed to like others ahead of cp
CP + Reus + Sancho wasn't used much this year...but it was in this final game...and it ended up getting a win....but still was kinda "off".... In my opinion, Reus is a great player and he helps create a lot of oportunites for the team....but he occupies a lot of the same spaces that Pulisic wants to...at one point in today's match Reus skied a header into row Z that CP looked likely to score on....without Reus out there, I'm sure CP has way better stats on the year.....it's not really about how each player produces in isolation - but how all of the pieces work together - and in this roster, I think things are not setup to maximize CP's stats. Favre didn't do a very good job of integrating all of his best players this year...he tried in the Tottenham series and it didn't work then, either....that was when he finally broke out the reus-cp-sancho trio and the team bombed (mostly because of defense but overall as well).... I think it might just b a case of a bunch of really good players that don't all fit together perfectly - even though I think sancho-pulisic and reus do seem very complimentary in theory.... of course alcacer and reus are going to have better stats - they better - they get to play right in front of goal - whereas CP is often far away with chalk on his boots....that he was able to produce roughly the same as goetze - who played as a 9 - is pretty remarkable imo
It's kind of ironic that he's both replacing and being replaced by a Hazard. He's like the fourth Hazard brother at this point. Conte won the Premier League. Di Matteo won the Champions League. They've done alright.
Don't forget Ancelotti, who won the Premier League and FA Cup with Chelsea in 2010. Then there was Ranieri, who was more of a mixed bag and didn't have any major trophies to his name with the club, but some argue he laid the foundations for Chelsea's success in the Mourinho years.
Larsen for a time, and then Guerriero for the last bit. Not that G/A stats tell the whole story, but interesting that he outperformed both in those areas.
I don't want to go to Chelsea: Buying Pulisic by the Pound. To Russia, with Love. Puliexit: Christian in a nation of shopkeepers. It's too late to say you're Sarri: Pulisic goes to Chelsea... Almost Blue, Pulisic goes to Chelsea.
Imagine what would have happened if he played like he did the last 3 games? Chelsea fans would lose their skepticism and Dortmund may have been kings of the Bundesliga before today’s matches.
we can't put everything on Pulisic though. He's not Messi or Ronaldo (even they have incidents where they can't carry a team).