I'm not talking about that at all. I said multiple times I'm talking about being a better footballer, not having a better career or whatever... ie, who has the attacking skillset that is most effective at impacting the scoreline of matches. Dempsey had a great career. CP's might not be better yet... but it will be. He's well on his way. OK... but goals aren't the sole metric, as I said multiple times. Dempsey is a striker. This isn't an honest comparison. Add in assists at a minimum for a starting point... if you do that, CP is comfortably ahead already. Again, 83 by Dempsey in a top EU league (the prem) compared to 106 by CP in top leagues.
This is the intangible/emotional argument, IMO. Who has more technique? Who is a better dribbler and progresser of the ball? Who is more creative in terms of passing? Who is the more accurate shooter and crosser? Who has the better athletic toolset (pace, quickness, engine, etc)? Who is better at corners and pens? Who has better movement, gets in better positions in the box, receives the ball more often in dangerous areas of the opponent's box? The answer to all of these questions and more is CP. Dempsey did a lot with what he had (and didn't have) to fashion a great career, and it's a credit to him in terms of his mentality and what not... but that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about what he did have as a footballer. CP is a better player. Doesn't mean he's a better leader or "US player" in terms of national team impact, obviously. I'm just talking about the demonstrable skillset.
Pulisic is now 26, so right where we would expect him to be hitting his peak. If Pulisic's form so far this year is a new level that we see regularly, all these questions will be put to bed and Pulisic will be the clear choice for best ever American player. Before he got to Milan he had a lot of stops and starts and hit or miss production with a lot of time out injured and a lot of time sitting on the bench. I think the question of who was best was still valid for most of Pulisic's career and we may now be hitting an inflection point. This season is where he appears to be separating himself from Donovan and Dempsey, two with little to no space between them depending on your priorities. I think we need to see how long it lasts and if it is more than a temporary thing. If this is a good run of form and he gets hurt again, slows down considerably or just kind of fizzles for the stretch and never picks it back up, the arguments will deservedly continue. But if what we've been seeing out of Pulisic lately is what we keep seeing for another 3-4 years, the answer to who is the best ever American will become clear. A few years at this level and a solid World Cup thrown in for good measure will make his case nearly insurmountable. More stops and starts will let others back in. If he wants to be the clear choice as the best American ever, he's got it in his sights with a clear path forward, but there is still work to do.
I loved Dempsey, one of my absolute favorite USMT players. But better than Pulisic?? Christian hoisted the CL trophy and a very strong case can be made that he was the most important Chelsea player in that run. They do not even get the chance to compete in the CL that year if CP does not come out on fire for project restart. Oh, and he also owned RM to get them to the final. This puts him in elite company among Americans, actually he has no company. His time at Chelsea is looked upon as a bust, the reality is that Chelsea fans should be genuflecting at his feet after what he did helping to secure that CL trophy for them. The rest of his club career, significant albeit inconsistent production for Dortmund as a teenager, now one of the absolute best players in Italy, all of the CL games, goals, and assists. For the Nats, he was arguably the best player on the ill fated qualifying squad as a 17 year old. He carried the team in the last WC. I'll concede that he did struggle in the last qualifying campaign IMO trying to do too much with the Captain America routine. His club career so far at 26 already has no American equal. I'll listen to anybody who says that he hasn't done enough for country yet to be considered the best ever, but as long as he stays healthy it's likely just a formality. Except for that two year stretch at Chelsea where injury and extreme club disfunction set him back, which also appeared to have carried over to a likewise dysfunctional US attack, he has been a joy to watch for going on a decade now. Seems like he will probably fall just short of that elusive American world class player we are all looking for but he is by far and away the closest we have come to date.
No, attacking production is the product of individual and team performances. Pulisic has outproduced Clint’s average production rate because his environments made production easier and for most of Clint’s tenure his environment was a huge drag on production (basically outside of 3 seasons). Pulsic was also in those better environments earlier and developed quicker than Clint. His environments have consistently been better for production than the best Fulham environment (usually significantly). He got to play in those environments because of where he was on the talent scale, the current quality scale, and the age curve. Two players can produce equal individual performances over a decent sample and have wildly different end product rates due to: 1. Team effects 2. Opponent effects. It is also true that different types of players are more or less resilient to different environmental factors. If prime Clint was put into those Chelsea or Milan or BVB teams he would have produced, on average, more than the younger, more injury prone, worse at defending, faster, less goal hungry, less competitive Pulisic. He would have performed better (also because of his added value when balancing out all their relative qualities). Clint was a “volume shooter”, when he was, because he created his own shot through skill, movement, and a hunger for goals. That’s a good thing, the very best attackers in soccer are all volume guys. Pulisic’s variable volume and hit or miss nature has been an issue. Clint was not a system guy or a focal point a team had to be built around or a product of only being a fit for a minnow strategy. He was a self generator who got his. When a team is dreadful the volume of opportunities to self generate goes down. When a team is average they went up enough to the degree that Clint could be the 4th leading scorer in the league from LM/SS. Clint’s production rate at Spurs (a worse environment for production than the avg Pulisic environment) was higher than Pulisic’s average rate at Chelsea. If we want to break down individual attributes it depends on the time frame. If we go current Pulisic vs Prime Dempsey: Pulisic: pace, agility, weak foot, penalties, crossing Dempsey: defense, durability, poaching, service/outlet target Push: basically everything else that doesn’t flow from the above (although I could go on into more granular details). If what has happened this season is the new normal then current Pulisic is better than prime Dempsey and he should continue to improve (especially in passing and decision making and to a lesser degree in ball striking/weak foot). That and how quickly his pace declines and durability issues develop will determine how much better he gets.
Clint largely played wide for Fulham until his last/best season where he split time playing wide and defending as an 8 with Dembele in a 4141 but moving up a line into attack as a SS in a 41311. TM has him with under 10% of his Fulham appearances at CF and I bet if we watched those he was still often the SS playing off another ST.
I don't think it's just a good run of form. Some of it is, but to my eye, he's not just scoring more, he's scoring goals he didn't before. I think he's simply improved his shooting, period, and as a result, he's getting to more places where he has a reasonable shot. He's been hot before, but it has often been shots like that last goal -- it's clear that one was not really repeatable. But that cut in curler he's hit a bunch for club and country now? He didn't have that with consistent accuracy three years ago. His shot on target % is up and thus his G/Shot are up at Milan, though this year's is at a level that may be unsustainable. But even last year was up a certain level. He is way outperforming his xG at Milan -- 21 goals on 14 xg! So yeah, he will likely regress ... but I think he has also improved.
Brian McBride went down with a long term injury around the start of Dempsey's first full season at Fulham (after arriving halfway through the prior season). It turned out Fulham didn't really have adequate cover in that position, so Dempsey became a makeshift starting CF for a decent spell, even though he was signed as, and played primarily as, a wide midfielder in limited minutes early on at Fulham. I typed that up because I figured that 07-08 season accounted for most of his 10% but I'm checking TM now and realizing they mostly didn't keep track of where he was playing until the following season ('08-'09), so I guess that's not it. In any event, Fulham was especially dreadful in the attack that season, so I'm not sure playing up top helped him that much. (Though I did always think that experience might have helped him prepare for the similar circumstance he found himself in early on during the 2014 World Cup.)
However bad Fulham were in any particular season it couldn't have been as bad as Chelsea during Pulisic's final days there amirite
I think he's a smarter player right now than what he was in the past and for me a lot of the improvement stems from that. I tend to think that learning more about the game is why most players improve over time more than skill improvements. And, it really, really helps that he's at a club willing to put some faith in him and keep him on the field. In the past, he was always on a short leach and that's not always great for confidence. I do think he's a better player now and not just on a hot streak, but I have to see it happen before I give it to hm.
Ridiculous. Clint was only ever at a "top" club based on very specific circumstances. He wouldn't play for modern Chelsea or Milan. So just assuming comparable production on that level makes no sense to me. Jesus. We couldn't possibly disagree more here. You're drastically overrating Dempsey's skillset; there are almost nothing that is a push between these two players, CP wins most of these battles easily. You've essentially claimed here... that dribbling is a push between them, ball progress, shooting accuracy, creativity, these are all marginal differences/"pushes"? Technique, is that a push? Even giving "defense" and "an outlet" to Dempsey outright I think is wrong, that is much closer to a push than lots of the key attributes which define CP as an effective attacker. Durability & poaching, fair enough. Strength, fine. The rest of this is just not accurate based on my focus on both players for their entire careers. If Fulham could have magically swapped a prime Dempsey for a prime CP... they would in a heartbeat. It would have been one of the best coups of their life as a club in the 2010s. You're a great poster, but we are worlds apart on this one... you've got this almost 100% wrong from my perspective. And you must, by this post, feel similarly about me. Eagerly agree to disagree.
When we're talking about Pulisic's durability do we mean throughout his professional career, or currently? Because I feel like he doesn't get injured nearly as often over the last couple years as he used to...
Suggest overall. Dempsey wins this with a macro view on both players. Not a close one, obviously. That said right now CP seems to be doing just fine tho.
Now I love me some Clint Dempsey. A Texas boy with a hard-nosed attitude, skill, and a nose for goal that had to EARN (and all caps is warranted) everything on the field. Sign me up! But there's absolutely no damn way that Clint was an any way, shape, or form better than Pulisic. Well, maybe in durability, but (knock on wood), CP seems to have turned a corner there. Hell, the times they overlapped with the national team, all they did was not qualify for the World Cup.
I’d put Donovan as a more creative passer/general vision and give him the edge on set pieces. Dempsey could head the ball, was not inferior in finding open scoring positions in the box, and had a level of nastiness Pulisic doesn’t quite match.
Pulisic will go down as the goat, fingers crossed, but old guys like myself might bristle at the suggestion Pulisic is ‘miles better’ than Dempsey. It’s disrespectful, he’s an all timer, it would take more than what we’ve seen so far to make that proclamation.
His skillset is miles better than Dempsey's; his impact as a player on the US team, as of yet, is not. Respect has nothing to do with assessing a skillset.
I’ll disagree and say his athletic profile as a soccer player is miles better, but Pulisic isn’t technically miles better if better at all. As a ball striker, dribbler, touch and technique, I think you underrate Dempsey.
It's pretty clear that Pulisic is well on track now to put any comparisons at club level to rest. With the US? One more big tournament would really help Pulisic in the debate against Donovan. And it is completely fair to separate out club and country in these comparisons, as fans around the world have these types of debates about their national teams. It's why a lot of France fans are unhappy with Deschamps not picking Griezmann as captain, for example.
His shot placement has improved, after being a career below expected finisher. However that trend (psxG > xG) takes about 100-150 shots to stabilize before we can say whether it was a good run or the new normal.
I don't expect him to outperform to this level. Just unlikely for anyone. But visually, his shot's improved / he's added more shots to his bag. And the numbers back that up for the most part. What the real net effect is -- how much is hot streak and how much is improvement -- I have no idea. Maybe it is smaller than I think. But I do think there's some real improvement there. It's not just a heater.
Looking at his starts in 07/08: Looks like he was the main ST against: Spurs x2, Wigan x2, Chelsea x2, Derby, Reading, Blackburn SS (or possibly wide) against: Villa, City x2 (likely wide in the 2nd), Portsmouth x2, Sunderland, Liverpool x2 (likely wide in the 2nd), United, Everton, Newcastle (listed as CF but playing with a 9), Birmingham x2, West Ham, Blackburn, Reading (likely wide because 2 STs started),
I think this is missing some from that season, like at home vs Arsenal or away at Bolton (see also this BBC writeup that describes him as a lone striker in the latter match) but otherwise yeah that seems about right.
We are in a thought experiment and we don’t have to deal with economic incentives. We are taking one player and putting him in another environment, normal signing practices be damned. Specifically we are taking prime Dempsey and replacing Pulisic at the clubs he was at at the age and level he was at when he was there. In real life prime Clint would not be at BVB because of his age curve and wage demands. BVB does not buy prime age EPL double digit goal contribution players. Most of the EPL guys they sign are former proven BL stars. When Clint left for England his other option was a rebuilding Atletico Madrid, so there is a world where he gets on the big club pipeline in time for a big feeder club to grab him. In his last season with BVB Pulisic lost his place not to a world class player or an EPL all star. He lost it to a similarly young Jacob Bruun Larsen. So clearly prime Clint Dempsey is good enough to play on that team based on ability. Pulisic was only ever at Chelsea as a futures bet (one of many they made) that he would develop into a player capable of scoring 18 EPL league goals from W/AM, he did it for a couple months, got hurt, couldn’t recover his form and crapped out. Chelsea were forced to sell him for a loss after paying him €36m in wages. If Pulisic had performed at the exact same absolute level as Clint did in his prime he would still be at Chelsea and have 30-40 more goal contributions. Attributes (current vs prime): Dribbling: are pace and agility not central components of dribbling effectiveness and hence covered? Recently Pulisic was asked for tips from a kid about dribbling and he said that it’s all about quick changes of direction (aka pace and agility). If we are talking about technical stuff and tricks then they are even, Clint was famously creative/inventive on the ball. Ball Progress: Pulisic can carry the ball and on his super club gets a lot of the ball in forward areas but his passing isn’t much (32nd percentile for progressive passes compared to top 5 league W/AMs). Shooting Accuracy: Over Pulisic’s entire career he has just gone above his expected goals. He’s plus 1.8 npxG. He was underwater at BVB (-2.0) and Chelsea (-1.7) on a combined 250 shots. So when he was there it wasn’t a strength. On his 75 Milan shots the ball go in luck has turned in his favor. However his shot placement has improved to better than average after being average over the Chelsea seasons I have seen numbers for. Clint peaked as an average shooter (shot getting being a more important ability and a strength). If Pulisic has turned a corner and his time at Milan is not a statistical blip then he is better. Too early to call = push. Creativity: I find that Pulisic is not an especially creative player. He can create for himself, he can create space for a shot. His vision and passing are not impressive (45th percentile for live ball pass Shot Creating Actions). Dempsey was more inventive on the ball but less quick and agile (except maybe when it came to inventive finishes if we are counting those here). He also wasn’t exactly the best passer, it seemed like the cause of that was that he was looking for his own shot. They are pretty similar in overall creative impact (more for themselves than others). Technique: Assuming you mean “ability to manipulate the ball to do what a player wants” everything not covered by weak foot evens out. Pulisic is more simple and clean whereas Clint wasn’t as “textbook” but could pull off the elaborate/difficult. Service/Outlet target and Defense: This is just absolutely 1000%, bet the house correct. Clint was big and strong and great in the air. He was also developed as a CM, had much more xDawg in him, and was a more committed, active, and effective defender. Pulisic is good in the air for his size but it’s not the same weight class, his pace (more quickness than top end) doesn’t make up for it. Defensively he is… it doesn’t come naturally to him. He doesn’t feel the hunger to get back into shape or get stuck in, and you’re never matching him up with anyone on a set piece. He doesn’t have the fire to make the extra effort play on that side of the ball. We also left out one of the four pillars of player evaluation, mentality, likely because we both know where that shakes out. So if Fulham were comparing prime Clint to current Pulisic (we don’t know what all his prime looks like because he is just into it), Fulham should, like Chelsea, bet on the age curve. They should say this younger guy has played better than Clint for a couple months (after doing so for a couple months 4 years ago) and looks likely to reach a higher peak.