Chelsea have to deal with Thursday football soon, and might progress quite far in that comp... Thurs-Sun schedules always tend to negatively impact league performance. They should be thankful Jose dug United a hole.
With Kane out 2 months, things are likely to change. Both for chelsea/ManUre and for BVB now that their UCL tie looks easier.
United was always going to push for top 4 once they got a decent manager... their back line isn't great but apart from that their squad is easily top 4 in the league. That's what makes Mourinho's abject failure and alienation of those talented players so hilarious. As far CL tie with BVB, Son will be back and that is enough to at least keep it competitive. But yes, missing Kane is tough.
I could see the coach starting Pulisic to prove that he's still in the team's plans for this season. They want to keep him motivated for the second half.
Leipzig has yet to lose at home this season. They have two ties there, though (1-1 vs. Fortuna back in September and 0-0 in October to Schalke).
On the bench. Is Reus injured? 🤝 Auf der Ersatzbank: Hitz - Alcacer, Dahoud, Pulisic, Wolf, Schmelzer, Bruun Larsen. pic.twitter.com/T1wl4O8GbM— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) January 19, 2019
Does seem a little strange. I would have Phillip for Goetze and Sanho and Puli. This manager is a tinkerer. We'll see how it winds up in the spring.
Michael Zorc just told @SkySportDE that another PL club had made an offer for Pulisic. "The player decided." Hint: It wasn't the one everybody talked about before. 🤐— Raphael Honigstein💙 (@honigstein) January 19, 2019
Dortmund are 1-0 up on 21'. If it stays this way, CP would be an ideal option off the bench on 60' to stretch the game on the counter.
Man City? I can't think of anyone else besides the top 4/5 that can afford the fee Dortmund was asking.
Interesting to see if Sancho is still able to have a phenomenon second half of the season, now that teams have tapes on him and sometimes to analyze those tapes. It looks average and frustrated today.
I noticed one poor dribble into a wall, one slick almost-assist, one nice almost-secondary assist. Pretty decent.
He lost the ball a couple times. He also had a couple of nice plays as you mention. Typical performance.
I'd add a psychic assist for the first one from the bench. Note to BSMX guys reading here ready to put that one in the GWOS: It's called sarcasm. Dang Aspies.