Of course the aforementioned players above were all established players and not 20-21 year olds trying to emerge.
You used the players you mentioned as examples of emerging at Chelsea. Zola had something like a decade at Napoli before going to London. Ballack between Leverkusen and Bayern had about four or five seasons as a locked in starter to get his footing. Drogba granted he had less time in France did so as a locked starter for a club that actually challenged for trophies when French football had parody. Face it, your example wasn’t that good.
No one is denying that that’s life at the top either. We are saying that you can’t infer that his lack of playing time reflects some sort of failure on his part. I suspect that 3-5 years from now people will look back and say, “wasn’t Tuchel the guy who thought Werner was a better footballer than Pulisic?” Sure, it happens. But the desire to want to make it into some sort of negative judgment about CP is a leap. People are pointing out that leap.
Yeah, you're making straw man arguments then knocking them over. I'm not making a negative judgement about Pulisic, unless you insist that saying he isn't at this point the best in the world in his role is a negative. I think that 11 goals in all comps last year was a really positive season. It wasn't a lock the doors, we're set season. I've also been saying that we're only now heading into Tuchel's 9th game in charge, and Pulisic hasn't been available for three of those. Drawing any conclusions on Tuchel's handling of Pulisic are serouisly premature. As Crawleybus points out, being in a top to bottom strong squad and having to fight for your position is not a bad thing and while I do rate Pulisic quite highly, it's difficult to see where playing him over Werner is a no brainer. they're both very good, highly rated, players.
That's why it's important to stay healthy. An injury can cause you to lose your position within the team if you're not crucial. Being injury prone can ruin careers. This is why it's absolutely important whether he stays at Chelsea or leaves to another top team to be able to play day after day without a high risk to injury. Very important. I feel like people aren't saying this enough and instead blaming other factors. Being injury prone also lowers your ceiling and potential
Salah, Debruyne, JFT, Morata, etc. etc. would like a word... I don't think any of them left CFC and went to a mid-table French side. Not cutting it at Chelsea doesn't mean a whole lot really. I find them interesting but one only has to look at 200 million spent over the summer, and then look at the unbalanced roster to see they are a mismanaged mess. Sure they compete at the top level, but that is more a function of the obscene amounts of money that an oligarch is willing to spend on his playthings, be that a plane, yacht or a football team, than it is good management. I am not shouting for him to leave and am on record saying I think he will outlast TT, but either way success or failure at CFC is clearly not career defining. TT is not the first coach to feel some pressure to play Roman or Marina's newest shiny thing. Your argument is specious at best. Mad post much?
at least CP appears healthy again ... at this point if he does not get good PT or starts - it will have to be not good enough in training or just not in TTs plans ... tomorrow should be a good barometer of where things stand ... TT gave CHO a second chance after yanking him in the second half - will he give CP a second chance .... hope we find out soon one way or the other. He has the quality (despite what Crawleybus thinks) and even if he does not rate in TTs plans - Salah, DeBruyne and others are examples of talent that has been signed but not utilized by Chelsea. Like it or not - Chelsea does have a history of being a very turbulent club (unlike ManU, ManCity, Pool and others) - wish it wasn't the case but thanks to Roman it can be a crazy place to play (Chelsea does NOT have a good history of carefully bringing along good young talent) ....
It's always tomorrow, or next week, or next game.....we keep hanging onto that last straw. We all thought/expected he would start against Madrid, only to see him get 5/10 min of clean up duty. He's probably sitting on the bench tomorrow at ManU at best, might even find himself out of the 18 and I won't be shocked.
Sometimes just like purple patches, player go through hurt patches. I get the concerns, I just think it is a bit early to panic and assume he is always going to be this way. He has had multiple niggling soft tissue injuries, during a stage in his life where he is going through high growth in mass and usage. This not uncommon in the football world.
As long as you are not suggesting that CP’s playing time is necessarily merit-based, then you’re right. I did misunderstand you.
Benzema is still a top class player, he's far from being washed up. If anything, Mbappe is much more needed for Real than Haaland.
Is that due to being well managed, or well subsidized? can I just say that everyone keeps firing takes at each other. Allow me to tell everyone what’s really up. Given the amount of money at play, CP isn’t moving unless two of the three entities involved in a transfer (buyer, seller, player) take a loss or risk. (I don’t think one party has the incentive this early in the contract to take on the whole hit.) Chelsea might decide to look forward and not back and eat some of CP’s wages, as well as take a big loss on the net transfer. CP might be willing to take a hit on his wages because he’s thinking long term and/or he realizes he’s still going to make generational wealth so might as well be happy. As far as the buyer goes, COVID has changed the game for the time being. So unless CP and Chelsea take really big hits, the buyer is going to have to take a chance on CP’s production going forward, or post COVID finances, or both. He ain’t going to Bayern unless Chelsea takes a loss on the transfer and the player or Chelsea eat some losses on the salary going forward. Anyway, I see a ton of takes based on the iron assumption that, for example, CP is going to insist on the same wages. Who knows?
It seems like all this discussion the past few pages is assuming that the 'SE Pennsylvania" rumor is true. Who knows what is going on? No one here. Only Tuchel, Pulisic and Chelsea really know. Not to say I dislike the post about the rumored insider info because I love the stuff like that that people post here, but I take it for what it is...a fourth hand rumor. So who knows? I'm still in the camp of give it through March and see if he starts playing more. It is too early to tell where Pulisic will end up in Tuchel's eyes. Lots of games to go, plenty of opportunities. Pulisic has shown his level and he is not suddenly a worthless soccer player. For me Pulisic is a very, very special player. When he is in form he is the most exciting yank abroad to watch, IMHO. Even last week's cameo he looked very dangerous, fast, and controlled like a game changer.
If CP is left out of the 18 tomorrow, that would be a huge statement of him totally not being in Chelsea's future plans....It'll be basically Chelsea keeping him off the field so he doesn't get hurt and potentially mess up his sell value. I believe he'll be in the 18 squad tomorrow and will be the first attacker off the bench given Zeyech didn't much last match being the first guy off the bench.
De Bruyne had to rehab his rep at Wolfburg. I do not wish that upon Pulisic. Also, despite mishandling him, Chelsea bought for €8.00m and sold to Wolfberg for €22m, That's a big ask, to almost triple Pulisic' fee would put him in Mbappe territory. they hung on to Morata for three years before selling him at a loss (though they loaned him to Amad for a year before the sale). But you point is well made, Chelsea buys players without need. It's almost like someone who buys an extra superyacht.
He has a contract that pays him €8.2 million a year through June 2024. That's €24.6 million for the following three seasons. Hands up on here if you really think you'd walk away. How much less would you take? That said, given that at least a lot of the blame for this situation falls on an unfortunate series of injuries, maybe what he really needs right now to stay where he is and spend this summer getting completely healthy, meaning actually rest. I get that people want to see him play for the nats, but it isn't their own $29.7 million that they're risking. Obviously, it is his to risk if he wants. We've seen a lot of really great players break down at about his age, and that would make me sad to see. But maybe he's really fine and dandy right now.
Ah. Here is how transfers work. Yes, when a player is sold, the old contract is null and void. But then the player signs a new contact with the new club. So he won’t be walking away from that money, only the delta between the old and new contracts. Then, of course, part of that delta goes to the agent, and part goes to income tax. Then add in that the end date of the new contract will almost certainly guarantee an extra year, maybe two. And then there’s the signing bonus and maybe a share of the transfer fee.... My point is, the whole discussion about transferring has far too many posts about one aspect of one facet pretending to be definitive, when it’s like a five faceted issue. Just one issue, how much money CP will make, is pretty damn complicated. one more thing...Chelsea is NOT an efficiently run club. They’ve been very wasteful in the Roman era, and win trophies by using money to erase mistakes, the flip side is that I doubt there is a club in the world whose leadership has more experience in offloading a transfer made redundant by a coaching change and/or a new transfer.
My totally unsubstantiated and unsupported prediction based on nothing but the coffee grounds in my beer: CP outlasts TT at Chelski Even tho I'd prefer both move asap.
The point is they ALL proved themselves at Chelsea in this 'so called' awful club, but hey if you think that Mount or CHO are that much superior to Pulisic and he needs to be somewhere 'easier' then thats's up to you, if you ask me its not going to be very beneficial if he keeps quitting every time the going gets tough!