Pulisic has some nice qualities but his shooting limits his finishing ability. If he had that in his arsenal many critics would view him differently.
Looking at the stats on Fbref, here's how I'd run down the players: Excellent: Pulisic -- 75th percentile in expected goals plus assists. 85th in progressive passes. 85th percentile in touches in the penalty box. Dominant. Football Reference's top comp on World Cup stats is Vinicius; its third-closest comp is De Bruyne. Absolute reminder of why we thought he was a world-class player. Adams -- The defensive activity stats are right there. But also was above average in expected goals and assists and well above average in progressive passes. Good: McKennie -- A home run hitter: 88th percentile in expected goals plus assists. 87th (!) in progressive passes, not traditionally a strength for Wes. 90+ in progressive passes received and touches in the penalty box. 94th in passes into the penalty area. The problem? He didn't attempt a lot of passes, and was poor at them. Particularly disappointing was his performance on short passes (15th percentile by percentage). Dest -- had the statistical profile of his best days at Barca: incredible attacking stats, and defensive stats...what defensive stats? Ream -- very good passing stats. Average: Robinson -- not a lot that's notable here. zzz. Musah -- the potential is outstanding. The stats are average: slightly above average in contributing to goals, slightly above average in progressively passing the ball, slightly above average in completing passes, mediocre in actually getting a lot of touches. Not a lot of defensive activity. It's not there yet. Zimmerman -- not a lot passing the ball, but he was reasonably secure with it. A lot of defensive activity. Mediocre: Weah -- average in expected goals and assists...average in progressive passes received ... poor in progressing the ball (15th percentile) ... completing dribbles ... Turner -- poor in terms of shot-stopping, but excellent on claiming crosses and passing. N/A: Your favorite whipping boy or object of conspiracy theorizing? Odds are they did not qualify by minutes played for FBref's benchmarking service. That said, you could argue this demonstrates the logistical failures of Berhalter: there should've been more depth here, and that's not really due to the player pool. That's more on Berhalter's farting around with mediocre role players.
My wording wasn't the best. I have seem him play (mostly with the USMNT), but not enough to inform an opinion of him. I only saw him a couple of times with the Union and nothing from his overseas experience (don't watch Red Bull Salzberg or Leeds). However, I don't think every poster should be checked at the door before posting to make sure that they watch Wright played games in the Turkish league. Of course, it may just be me...
Graham Ruthven and the TSS crew actually had mixed feelings about Pulisic's performance. They assessed he was good in a couple big moments, but overall failed to make a lot of impact because of still having the tendency to over-dribble and miss the open man or be ineffecient. And that's where I was at too. He was pretty good overall. And on one hand I want to give him credit, because I rightly criticized him in the lead-up of never having a legit goal or assist as a starter against the top 10+ opponents he'd played competitively. 2 g+a (+ a fluke one) in 4 games is a solid return in a vacuum. But he's still a player who demands the ball a lot while not shooting a good efficiency. These guys are always controversial players in basketball as well - guys who have a lot of desire & believe in themselves, but lack size, skill, and control to consistently be of positive impact. I'm thinking of your Allen Iversons, Stephon Marburys, and Russell Westbrooks. Or maybe the apropos comparison is a 6th man, because that's more his role w/ clubs, before he comes to play for us. These guys will shoot and playmake you in and out of games, and maybe more of the latter. But they provide you a floor of performance and if you can rely more on your d that can be enough most nights. We were able to do that, until the round of 16.
It’s not a fluke assist when you make a good run and play a dangerous ball and it’s a lucky finish. You also have some weird cherry picking. What about when he dominated Morocco? How does that look now?