I don’t think I am suggesting anything like cloak and dagger, or anything all that unusual, and certainly not anything random. I am suggesting that clubs sometimes fabricate injuries to justify decisions that they don’t want to have to explain any other way. Not clubs so much as coaches. Especially young, insecure coaches. You may draw whatever conclusions you want to about my beliefs or my Inferences.
How could the coach fabricate an injury and not have the club involved? Chelsea issued an official statement about this, so they are involved... so is Frank duping them, somehow? The whole club? Or maybe just key staff members? Do you know the process for when an expensive player on 145k a week has an injury monitored at a club like Chelsea? You see how this doesn't really make a ton of sense when I start gently poking at it? Aside from that, what do you think the reason is that Chelsea would make up this injury? What are they avoiding saying?
If I was to take your approach to this difference of opinion, I would ask why you think that Pulisic is lying? But I didn’t, because that doesn’t seem like a reasonable or charitable way to discuss this disagreement. I understand your position. It’s not mine.
It's good that you didn't, because I didn't say that. But you did say Chelsea and/or Frank is lying about the injury, right? So that's a considerable difference. In any event, the answer is he's not lying; I already pointed out that his statement can be totally consistent with precautionary tweak/knock/cramp-related squad decisions. Since you're hip on logic and whatnot, I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of big claims requiring big evidence? Because that's the area we're all forced into when you jump to "Chelsea are lying about an injury to avoid talking about the fact that they are biased against Pulisic!" or whatever you think the reason is.
I swear. The post was in reply to the NBC/Yahoo sports idiot speculating how long he would be out for. A player can have a strain/whatever for one game and be held out as a precaution. Can be fit a couple of days later. Also happened to Pereira at Leicester .
Believing Frank is to believe that Pulisic is lying. Believing Pulisic is to believe that Frank is lying. Whatever strange reality you’ve constructed in your head that makes that not so, is yours and yours alone. I don’t share it. I’m done with this little lecture. You may pose as one of the wise heads around here, but you do not seem any wiser about these matters than the next person, at least to me. We just disagree, and perhaps you should accept that.
I accept that we disagree, that's actually neither here nor there. I'm asking you to support your actual statements, as opposed to just going around about opinions again. If you can't do that, fine... but you seem to be going way out of your way to not even try, and I don't get why? As to the tweet, I just said that CP's response to a specific article headline can easily be consistent with a cautionary club response to a small, non-long-term injury concern, a knock in practice or a small pull which is them immediately cleared by the physio staff then rendering that player "100% healthy". The difference in believing this and believing Chelsea are lying about an injury is considerable, whether you acknowledge that or not.
it is getting kind of crazy here. I just want to point out something annoying such as facts. Fact 1 - Pulisic did not play in the FA Cup match. Fact 2 - Lampard "said" that Pulisic got a knock in training. Fact 3 - Pulisic was taken off sooner than we would have liked in the previous game(s) Fact 4 - Chelsea has played 3 - 4 matches in the last two weeks .. Did I miss any other facts? Let's try and rein in the conspiracy theories a little bit - ok?
If it is indeed a hamstring issue, I am actually more concerned now. If he is this injury prone (week to week), that does not bode well for the future.
One thing that I don't get is that a lot of people on BS have been stating that he is getting rest because he is young and slightly injured. Aren't young people more resilient, as opposed to old people?
I'll add a few facts... Fact 1 - Last year he had several short term muscle injuries that kept him out of games. Fact 2 - prior to the previous game you mention in your Fact 3 he was held out for injury. Fact 3 - He said a couple days after that game he was 100% healthy. Fact 4 - He started the next game. This conspiracy stuff is BS (in both senses of the acronym).
Yes, but nobody we talk about in a sporting context is old in the sense that your notion addresses. If Pulisic were 70, we'd be having a very different conversation, mostly along the lines of what the hell does he think he's doing out there? I mean, think of your hips and knees man, walk, don't run. Pulisic is dealing with the same sort of injury issues that a lot of high end young players deal with. The conventional definition is that players peak at 23-30. There is a reason for that. Players are not stronger and fitter at 20 than they will be a couple years after that. But this raises a really important issue with Pulisic. As is the case with many young players, he's pushing himself extremely hard, and getting great results out of that. But, especially when on the tail end of a difficult and quite long season he is called for national team performances, it means he's never really getting the rest his body needs to fully recover and move forward. A Michigan State study on rest notes the need for " Long-term recovery – This refers to recovery periods that are built into a seasonal training schedule and may include days or weeks incorporated into an annual athletic program." He skipped that his full summer break because of an idiotic Gold Cup. With national team duties, and the stress of moving from one high profile club to a different high profile club, Pulisic didn't get to fully recover from last season, something his body would need to do even if he'd ended the year in perfect health. Handling him gently this season is a very good idea, because at this level he's not just a player, he's a sizeable investment. They aren't going to risk wearing him down over the holiday schedule (btw, five matches, not 4, in those two weeks), or anywhere. His health is very closely monitored. How he feels doesn't matter. chelsea knows what his fitness level is and they aren't going to risk their investment for a couple matches.
Pulisic: 5 goals, 2 assists in 16 games. Zaha: 3 goals, 2 assists in 21 games. Him vs Pulisic... Best winger in London though. pic.twitter.com/g3luHbd4h6— Oliver (@OliCFC97) January 7, 2020 Yet for some strange reason, Lamps seems to want Zaha.
one reason might be that Zaha produces in the Prem while surrounded by Crystal Palace level players, and would be expected to do much better with better players around him.
Same thing could be said of Drinkwater. You could make the opposite argument, he stood out because he's on a team with lesser talents. If he was on a team with tgeater talents, then his abilities won't really be that much special. I wonder how often they give him the ball. How many touches does he have per 90 compare to CP? He must be the driving force on that team.
I am not promoting a conspiracy. I am making inferences from missing facts that some people don’t like. My big transgression seems to be my unwillingness to abandon those inferences when others characterize them as unreasonable. Not sure why we can’t all just live with that, but whatever ...
No one has yet answered the question: Do we really think 45+ league apps is a great thing for CP (or any player) at this level?