This shows that. And there were multiple games a few years ago he played right wing back. For reference, look at the difference in the heat maps from this season compared to last season, first is this season, second is last season pic.twitter.com/P2YQ3P5jWD— Sanjiv (@USMNTvideos) July 7, 2020
Is there a better dribbler in one-on-one situations in the league since the restart? On current form he may only be second to Messi in beating his man off the dribble.
Pulisic’s recent success highlights two things for me: 1 it’s so important for him to stay healthy so he can maintain a consistent level of performance and stay in his coach’s plans. 2 Like all players, how his coach uses him is so important. Many of us suspected that he was being terribly misused at Dortmund, and that is looking more and more true every day. Lampard has done a fine job with him, but I don’t think he has done anything remarkable. He just recognizes that CP is a very direct player and talented dribbler, and plays him on the left with encouragement to cut inside and push toward goal. Complete opposite of his BVB coaches keeping him on the right touch line. Of course he is producing more this way. Also, I think Mount has looked much better playing as more of a central midfielder than a CAM/second striker. This utilizes his strengths (work rate and skills on the ball) while asking less of him in the final third, where imo he is mediocre.
I watched some highlights of Pulisic's play yesterday. Wow. The goal was great, for sure but, as someone else pointed out recently (sorry I don't remember who to credit for this) he's become a much more dynamic dribbler. He used to do a lot of straight-line dribbling, trying to beat his mark with speed, but now is doing lots of clever changes of pace and direction. He will hold up momentarily, too, allowing his teammates time to get into better position. His ball control is excellent. His pass across the 18-yard line to Willian was really, really good. The kid looks like he's got his head up and has increased his field awareness. I hesitate to make the comparison, I have to say that I couldn't help but think "Gee, his style is awfully similar to a certain Balon d'or winner from Argentina". Excellent.
I don't think you're too far off. Pulisic could potentially be the first American to be nominated for the Balon d'or. Think about it, Messi and Ronaldo are moving into retirement age. Who's left after them to compete for the honor over the next 5 or 10 years? Neymar? He flops more than he win titles, so I wouldn't count on him. If Chelsea is able to win EPL or CL, and Pulisic is their biggest offensive producer; he'll definitely be in the discussion. -Ha
Yep. He has the short, quick steps that Messi uses, and the direct attacking style. He's more like Messi than Hazard in that he's looking goal first, and he's always looking to pounce. Ruthless was the term. That said, where CP may get 4-5 of those instances a game, Messi gets like 12 and has a better shot and vision to boot. So it's both a similar style, and still a really long way to go.
I like that Frank holds him responsible for end product. When asked about Christian, he often seems to be on a variation of... well yes, he's an amazing dribbler, we all know that but he needs to score for us to win games. I especially liked this quote: "Look around at the top attacking players in the world, and they score goals regularly to win games, and at the moment, he's doing that, so I'm delighted with him." Frank expects a lot and if we want to call Pulisic a top player by world standard we need to expect a lot too. You can be a good player who just causes chaos and gets on the score sheet now and then. If you want to be great, you need to be on that score sheet and making a difference. And let's face it, Pulisic isn't going to give you much on defense. His contributions are all going to be measured by how much he brings to the offense and further how much he directly contributes to the scoreboard.
Funnily enough, Pulisic made a couple of nice plays on D yesterday. He can play decent D but I don’t think the team wants him playing a ton of D,
Pulisic will have to find the right balance. Attacking players need to conserve energy for their attacks, but ... One of the things I've noticed about Willian is that though he doesn't always sprint back to defend, whenever he loses the ball himself he works HARD immediately to recover it.
I didn't mean that as a criticism. I would think any team who has Pulisic and wants to use him on defense is just being silly. Sure, he needs to hustle back and help out and he does. But, he's on the field for offense and that's where he will be judged primarily.
Better teamwork makes everything easier, although I must say, much of the time Chelsea's defense looks just as bad as Dortmund's did when CP was there.
Pulisic is tracking back better since the reopening, it seems to me. But Chelsea’s back line looks weaker than ever.
I agree for the most part... but he still needs to get a bit better when he does track back. He actually made a few decent defensive plays in the last game... but it certainly seems like his heart isn't in it when he is one-on-one... he tends to look for steals when the player is double-teamed near the sideline... coming around back to try and pick his pocket and start the counter. But overall I agree that CP's primary job is to provide offense and a coach should position him accordingly.
I feel this is approaching fantasy/daydreaming territory now, but I kind of agree. With two all-time greats having maintained such a consistently high form over the course of at least 13 years, it's easy to forget that the nominees haven't always been so clear-cut. Here are the top 3 in the 12 years preceding Messi's and Ronaldo's first entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d'Or#Winners 1995: Weah, Klinsmann, Litmanen 1996: Sammer, Ronaldo, Shearer 1997: Ronaldo, Mijatovic, Zidane 1998: Zidane, Suker, Ronaldo 1999: Rivaldo, Beckham, Shevchenko 2000: Figo, Zidane, Shevchenko 2001: Owen, Raul, Kahn 2002: Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Kahn 2003: Nedved, Henry, Maldini 2004: Shevchenko, Deco, Ronaldinho 2005: Ronaldinho, Lampard, Gerrard 2006: Cannavarro, Buffon, Henry Without taking anything away from any of those names, it's not inconceivable to me that Pulisic could eventually put together a season as good as some of those players had during that time period. But I think a more realistic (though obviously still ambitious) goal is that Pulisic eventually gets named to an official international/European Best XI -- just as Eden Hazard did multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Team_of_the_Year#Team_of_the_Year_2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Team_of_the_Year#Team_of_the_Year_2018
We are seeing Pulisic's brain catch up to his physical skills. The game is slowing down for him and he's learning how to exploit his physical advantages. He's also making better decisions about releasing the ball when he draws a crowd. It's really fun to watch.
Even not going back that far, you have nominees like Van Dijk and even Modric who ended up winning it (which tbf was due to WC performance)