As much as I would love to agree with this, I don’t think it’s fair. I am not a CHO fan, but he is 2 years younger than Pulisic, and can do somethings better than CP - namely cross-field passing, and you could also argue shot strength and ability to curl the shot. Listen, I’d take Pulisic. But to say it’s not even close is hyperbole. And we may find that, in the long run, they both are let downs with their careers. But I’m hopeful CP gets going.
My hope from a purely YA standpoint is that CHO is so mentally fragile that he folds up shop and sulks in the corner for the rest of the season and CP benefits from the void. Personally I’m not sure why this is such a big deal, the kid should knuckle down, take it like a man and double his efforts in training. Personally I’d rather see him come out publicly and bad mouth Tuchel in the press. That would make for some heat!
I am not feeling Chelsea...never have since CP has been there. Clusterfkkkkk of a team imo....its got the prestige and names and big budget but when I watch them play I just dont see much dynamism and spark. I feel like with different complimentary pieces and a better manager, he could really play so much better out there....and take his game to new heights.
Their record transfer fee is like $41m; they aren't going to spend $73m on a guy who would be a buy-low candidate like Pulisic. They're smarter than that. They'd laugh at CFC and say his purple patch was just great form, that he's fragile and outside of the restart very average.
imma be real: CHO has done jack shit in his career. He's hyped because he's English and he's a Chelsea academy product. If he was an American he'd be a nobody. He has three goals in 49 appearances and oh yea he also tore his achilles as a teen. Not exactly a model of health and consistent production himself.
They spent 88 million dollars on Lucas Hernandez, and he’s not even a lock starter. I get what you are saying in that they generally don’t spend a lot, but I wouldn’t categorically rule it out.
Agreed. We all are hesitant to buy into CP being the finished product just because of how he did last season. All CHO has really is a good run of form lately. So we have to apply the same standard.
One thing I've learned from watching a shitload of YA in quarantine is that form comes and goes, ever for shit and great players. Pulisic's form will return. He's not this bad and probably was never as great as top 10 in the world during his purple patch last year. Just gotta ride the wave, trust the process, all that jazz.
He's shown that top 10 talent through his short career. It's why he was bought by Chelsea. You think a NON-top 10 talent can do that against Bayern at the age of 18? Or that against Liverpool? We can be better than goldfish here
There's a lot of top 10 talents in all sports. There are very few guys at a consistent top ten level. That's what separates the wheat from the chaff. Pulisic has always had the talent, the problem is his body and at times his brain. Narratives change frequently, this isn't the end of his chapter at Chelsea and certainly his career is just getting started still. He's got another 7-8 years in his prime and hopefully another 3-4 good ones after that.
What I will say about Tuchel is that he has certain players playing amazingly better than they were before. Against Southampton, for example, Kante looked a lot more like the Golden Age Kante than the shell he had become under Lampard. So while it's disappointing Pulisic is not playing, there's reason to hope that when he does play, he'll have a similar renaissance.
Maybe we should have a larger discussion on expectations around consistency. Marcus Rashford, Bernardo, and Raz are probably the closest analogues to Pulisic in the Prem. They've all gone through stretches of down play, rough play, injury what have you. This isn't to say - at all - that Puli is better than them - what it is saying is that EVERY player goes through up and down swings. Literally all of them. Even Messi and Ronaldo. Pulisic last season, wasn't all that different from those dudes. This season he was still doing well inspite of not getting on the stat sheet, until the last few weeks, where his play looked worse. Maybe we're all just conentrating too much on an individual within a vacuum...but his consistency, to me, hasn't crossed out of the expected results of a world class talent. But I also expected these stretched of poor play.
CHO has 20 goals + assists in his senior career in league & CL, since 18/19, in 2950 minutes. CP has 27 goals + assists since 18/19 season in league & CL, in 4500 minutes. CP has 51 goals + assists in his senior career in league & CL, in 9919 minutes. So CHO outperforms CP per90, and CP has seen more injuries and is less productive in this overall sense.
The first step is consistently producing, and as far as comparisons go these players all crossed that threshold years ago. CP isn't on that level, he can't even consistently stay healthy yet. He never has, in his entire career over a full season. This isn't about being world class... CP can't even get consistently selected because of his issues with form or availability due to injury. It's not enough to have a single run of form which is comparable to top players. CP had a real nice run for Chelsea to get CL this season, but that's all it was. A run. At least until he actually proves otherwise. Because lots of players are capable of a good run, or even a really good season. Jesse Lingard can do that, and has. Divock Origi can do that, and has. Michael Antonio, Harvey Barnes, Teemu Pukki, Ollie Watkins, Patrick Bamford, Callum Wilson, Danny Ings... they have all recently gone on these kinds of runs, scoring in important matches, scoring big goals when called upon as a sub, having a really good season... whatever it is. That's just step 1.
I'm sure all of those players have had the runs at one time or another, not sure how recently - I don't follow them, thankfully - but I'm not sure how that is relevant to Pulisic. Or is that step #2?
thanks for the history lesson. I’m well aware of that. How’s he played this season? Has he helped Chelsea this season? I enjoyed every second of his post lock down run. But he’s out of form. And to act like he is head and shoulders above CHO at the moment is not based on facts.
I think his point is that Pulisic’s torrid project restart isn’t evidence that he’s a world class player because there’s a long list of players that can rip off 7 goals in 12 games or whatever. Step two is being on the field consistently AND being productive, which Pulisic hasn’t demonstrated in his career that he can do.
to be fair acting like CHO has shown anything remotely close to being able to match the peaks is not factual either. he is better than pulisic now, but still not a champions league caliber winger
i honestly think pulisics sample size is just too small this year. for whatever reason he just hasn't playeed much and hard to judge his output. he seems to not be healthy. occam's razor says he's not healthy. he's a sports car, one little thing off and he's sputtering. It's an archetype. he's gotta get on the field, one way or another. training 100% for a couple weeks in a stretch most guys are going to be tired would be a nice start I'd imagine towards getting some burn.
Here's what I said: "CHO isn't in the same level is talent as Pulisic. I'm not even sure it's all that close." Typo and all. CHO hasn't remotely even close to the ability Pulisic does when Pulisic is on form. Show me anything remotely close to CHO bossing the European Champions. I'm sorry, but to do what he did for large stretches against world class opposition, in multiple matches, is what makes a player special. CHO - and I actually like him as a prospect - hasn't remotely come close to showing that. There are 2 other attacking players on the roster who have done that though, and that's Werner and Kai.
Why are you making me defend CHO. I don’t want to. I don’t care if he ends up at Bristol Rovers. I’m just saying that he is 2 years younger, and if he played for the USMNT, We probably wouldn’t say that CP is levels above. And of course, I’m focused mostly on recent form. Fans don’t care what CP did a year ago. They need him to perform now, and I hope it happens. I’m rooting for him to be world class
I'm not. I'm pointing out what I said is different from what you think I said. As for the rest of the current Pulisic discourse, I don;t; think anyone's getting anywhere with that. Hopefully he plays, and plays well tomorrow, and we can all just put this behind us and turn to a different discussion.