Well CHO has been held back by injuries & Tammy, who is a pretty good goalscorer, has scored a bunch of goals. It's not that complex. That's going to color most supporters' POV. CHO is a very good player. The degree to which he's seen to "compete" with CP on this thread hurts this board's opinion of him, similar to the way it hurt Mount when they were seen to be competing for minutes, but he's very talented and still very young. He hasn't put it all together yet, but the ceiling his play represents is very high. Honestly, just do me a favor and think about how you'd feel about CHO if he were American. That skillset, at 20 years old, getting minutes for a top prem side, formerly seriously pursued by Bayern... that's the lens through which English & Chelsea supporters view him. Whether it completely works out or not and he becomes some superstar? That's a whole other discussion.
i want to see cho do the the liverpools of the league the same way that pulisic has before i get too agitated about him overtaking healthy pulisic. his goal against city was a gimme not of his creation
Some people are giving CHO way to much credit right now. He had one good half as a sub... one relatively mediocre game and decent-to-good game against a very inferior opponent. Regarding the goal against City.... IMO, CP and Mount deserve far more credit for the score. It was a sitter... he was in position like any pro winger should be... but it was certainly a tap-in. The fact that a struggling Werner keeps getting starts.... even at CF over Giroud tells me that Frank is going to play him. It will be interesting to see if CP sits in the next one.... if he does then Frank is valuing the wrong things.
Let's take a quick look at the upcoming schedule, which remains pretty consistently at a two games/week pace. I will rank each opponent with precision (easy/middling/difficult). Sat 1/16 @ Fulham (18/20) (middling*, surprisingly difficult to beat) Tue 1/19 @ Leicester City (3/20) (difficult) Sat 1/23 v Luton Town (easy) FA Cup 4th Round Wed 1/27 v Wolves (13/20) (middling) Sat 1/30 v Burnley (16/20) (middling*) Wed 2/3 @ Tottenham (4/20) (difficult) Sat 2/6 @ Sheffield United (20/20) (easy**) Wed 2/10 @ Barnsley or Norwich City (easy) FA Cup 5th Round Sat 2/13 v Newcastle (15/20) (middling*) [Finally a full week off] Sat 2/20 @ Southampton (6/20) (difficult) Tue 2/23 @ Atletico Madrid (Champions)(extra difficult) Sat 2/27 v Manchester United (2/20) (difficult) [Again a full week off] The games I would like to see Pulisic start have been bolded. I would like to see him start once/week against the toughest competition, especially v Leicester City, Tottenham, Atletico and Man U. And the scheduling works pretty well for this purpose, as the only 'trap' game is Southampton, which falls right before the Atletico CL game. If Pulisic holds up, he can sub in against the weaker teams, and maybe even pad his stats (CHO-style***) ++++++++++++ * There are no 'easy' games in the PL. ** Every rule must have an exception. *** Just kidding!^ ^ Okay, not entirely.
Looking at the next two games, with a tight Saturday-Tuesday turnaround (originally Friday-Tuesday), I would play the pink team @ Fulham and the Pulisic blue team @ Leicester City.
Pulisic is playing quite well, and his lack of goals/assists is more randomness than reflection of poor play. Not worried about that. As for CHO, it's not Pulisic who should be worried.
He hardly gets any chances served up to him... he has the majority of hockey assists in the EPL lately which demos that he has been the facilitator rather than the beneficiary. Sure would be nice for him to get a perfect cross served to him like CHO did against Man City.... or get a tap-in like Werner got in the FA cup game. He has also been very unlucky WRT assists this season... particularly WRT Werner.
Funny thing is CHO will get some starts. Play like shit, and fans quickly turn on him again. Rinse and repeat. Rumors floating around that Chlesea might bring back Avram Grant to assist Lampard.
Here's another article which seemed to push the idea that CHO is likely to take CP's spot and CP need to start worrying.... https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/players/chelsea-ziyech-hudson-odoi-lampard-19608400 CHO is even quoted stating his partnership with Ziyech is getting better...sound like he's confident it's his spot to lose moving forward. I have full confidence CP will regain his spot but dribbling past people won't be enough...needs to provide the goals/assist.
Well it's going to be a really good test for Fulham... They are getting kind of screwed having to play Tottenham and Chelsea three days apart after having FA Cup action. Fulham is going to be a really nice opportunity for Chelsea playing a team that keeps it shape and plays bunker counter football.
They (the article authors) are really reading a lot into that game against the mighty, mighty Morecambe. LOL
I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to argue that CHO and Ziyech should play on the wings over Pulisic at the moment. We've seen a few flashes of brilliance but there is no doubt that his overall body of work since returning from the hamstring injury has underwhelmed compared to his body of work before the injury. To me, he doesn't look as explosive as he once did. He has moments where I think I see the old Pulisic and then he has moments where he just looks like he has lost a little bit of quickness. A dive into the stats shows that Chelsea have played worse with Pulisic on the field than with him off. Whether that is because Pulisic is playing against tougher opponents or playing during periods when Chelsea is going through an overall lack of form, fans do notice these things. Pulisic is quite clearly the most dangerous attacking player we have ever produced, but it remains to be seen if he is a winning player. He won a cup at BvB and was a runner-up for a cup at Chelsea, but the rest of his career so far has been a case of his teams very often underperforming expectations. Fans want to win and Pulisic has not exactly shown an ability to carry a team during his career other than for two months in the summer of 2020. I do think he looks fine and he deserves to play for Chelsea. But he has not cemented a starting spot on the wings over Ziyech/CHO based upon his play this season and it is OK to say so. Personally, I think Pulisic has been played in the wrong position for most of his career, including at Chelsea. I think managers do opposing teams a favor when they put Pulisic on one side of the field or the other. It makes his easier to defend and double-team. I'd really like to see him in the middle where defenders find themselves 1v1 with him without a touch line to help them out. Something like: ---------------------Mendy -----Azpi----Silva----Zouma----Chilwell -------------Kovacic----Mount -------Ziyech----Pulisic----CHO --------------------Giroud
Yeah, I am aware of that, it's just funny because that is what the Chelsea fans used to chant at him in Stamford Bridge. And of course Abramovich fired him the next season.