Tuchel said he is a great player and Chelsea knew he was great when they bought him. Then he said he has been there a short time and they have been so busy they haven't thought about the Summer at all. Everything else is just supposition and rumor mongering. I know I'm suppose to get all worried. But I think Frank would have played him against a crap opponent and maybe he pulls his calf. I have no problem with him sitting out because of a minor twinge. I really don't care if he gets 2000 or 5000 minutes with Chelsea. In fact, to have him ready for the Fall, I don't care if he even plays 500 minutes the rest of this season. Chelsea is as fickle and well run as Barcelona. They just have endless money. They buy shiny things and fire coaches who can't get them to play together. If they did sell Pulisic, it would probably be a good move for him. I doubt there would be a lack of buyers. Chris Richards needs thousands of minutes. Uly Llanez needs thousands of minutes. Pulisic doesn't really need a thousand minutes, over the next year, to play effectively for the USMNT.
Probably all true, since he's still more than qualified to dominate concacaf and qualifying. Just frustrating to see such a difficult situation, one which was probably foresaw prior to his transfer. Great players have confidence they can succeed wherever, but Chelsea is always a mess. The best thing to happen is where aaronson/weah/Reyna/etc. are all in such great form that we can discuss benching CP until he is in form and playing. Don't think we're there yet tho.
I don't see what's bad about it unless you're a Chelsea fan. He's still the same player. He either wins his place back or moves on.
Actually, sparky, a lot of Zardes' USMNT starts are from midfield. You might want to factor that into the statistical "analysis" you provide.
I agree. Who cares about Chelsea? He hasn't lost his place so much as the new manager is using a formation he doesn't fit into. What we don't know was that just a quick stop gap measure? Chelsea were conceding goals left and right. Did Tuchel just look at Chelsea under Conte, not that long ago, when they had the best defense in Europe, see he had all the same players still on the roster, and just put in Conte's back-3 system? Most likely he did exactly that. He even looked for the most likely Victor Moses type player and put him (CHO) at wingback. Is this the long term plan? Who knows. But they are winning and why change what is working? It could all be different in two weeks. I can't take the "sky is falling" over every little speed bump. The worse case scenario is that Pulisic is rested, healthy, and moves to Manchester or Munich. Some terrible outcome like that...
Under Berhalter, Zardes has 6 goals and 1 assist in 10 games worth of minutes. That's better than a goal every other 90. That's pretty prolific. He just won MLS Cup playing striker the way Berhalter supposedly wants to play. No one claimed he was Superman.
If players were always the same, then they wouldn't win spots or lose spots. Form wouldn't matter. Confidence wouldn't matter. It's bad because he's out of form. If he gets sold, that's a big unknown. If they decide they want to sell him, they'll have little incentive to play him. One of our best players not actually playing, by any account, is a bad thing.
I mean, it's a lost season for Pulisic. It's not just the Tuchel part of the season. That's objectively bad. I'm surprised how casually most of BS acts about Pulisic's shift from "consistently dominant in top league" to "is he even playing this week?"
Sure. He played a lot of games 16-18 for Dortmund. A total of 85 games. And that doesn't include USMNT games. Like most players that aren't Cristiano Ronaldo, they go thru ups and downs in form and health. He played in 34 total games last season and he's already played in 25 total games this season. I don't have any concern about Pulisic's quality. My concern, and I think that of most people, is of his health. I remember a commentator once saying that "staying fit and available week in and week out is a skill." There's a heck of a lot of truth to that.
I think it's a genetic trait that can be impacted by the specificity of particular injuries (some tend to linger and be chronic, while others can be one off injuries). Sure we've got Iron Men like Cal Ripken, Jack Youngblood, or Philip Rivers more than a decade ago, who played through insane injuries or were just ridiculously consistent in their availability, but in my experience of watching sports, some guys just dont seem to have bodies that can handle the rigors of their sport. I would bet a ton of $$$ that Will Fuller's suspension this past year was entirely related to him taking PED's to address chronic injury issues (the guy has never been healthy for a single season going back to his rookie year in '16). That's kind of why the skill piece to me is largely nonsense. I think the vast majority of it is out of the players control. In this day and age, nearly all players are fitness freaks and do everything on their side to stay fit to such an extent that the rare instances where players don't seem to be on that angle (Zion and Harden in the NBA right now) stick out like the proverbial fart in church. I tend to think that its basically Genetics+Training+Luck=Availability Skill for all but the few random idiots that don't take the diet and training piece seriously (the Clint Mathis Method LOL). I get that I'm probably coming across as persnickety, but I think it's important to note that "availability" as a skill suggests it's part player behavior (training, eating habits etc) and part in born gifts, and I think that's just overly simplistic as most injury prone guys aren't shirking duties, they just have bodies that either naturally can't handle the rigors of their sport and/or have just been very unlucky w/the types of injuries they've had and the frequency of said injuries. My brother had bad ankles, I had no idea why, he was a great soccer player, one of those old school sweeper types that typically was assigned to also mark whomever the opponents best player was, but he spent plenty of time on the shelf with ankle injuries. I never had problems with my ankles. No idea why. Never did though. What I had were chronic knee injuries starting with a torn mensicus, and chronic problems in my left foot after I tore a ton of ligaments in it at football practice as a sophmore and then my brother "accidentally" ran over the same foot with the car five months later (it was accidentally, but it was both of our faults, I thought he was done parking, and had gotten out the car and was picking up school books, and he was looking out the window, and changed his mind about the parking job w/o noticing I'd climbed out, rolled over it, then backed over it again when he heard me hollering in pain lol). All that stuff happened in my teen years but my left knee hasn't been the same, and my left foot hasn't either, too much damage from the football injury, didn't rehab it properly, and the same with my knee injury. My wife's helped (physical therapist), but at the end of the day, whenever I played intensive sports, I picked up injuries, shoulder, arm, foot, knee, just happened, and my brothers ankles for no apparent reason were just magnets for breaks and sprains. In fairness I sucked at rehabbing until I met my wife, but the injuries were constant as a teen anyway. Sometimes you're healthy, sometimes you're not, sometimes your body can handle the sport, sometimes your a magnet for hamstring issues (Gary Clark was like that for my fav football team) or other problems. Pulisic just strikes me as a guy that is like a coiled spring, in the same way Will Fuller, and John Ross are in the AFC at WR, and both of those guys have chronic leg injuries too. Seems to happen a lot with certain body types that have high end, explosive acceleration. Wonder what's the best training for it? Yoga?
Get out of here with the ridiculous words-in-mouthisms. What the hell about my post you're quoting portrays Zardes as Superman, or that he's constantly scoring goals? I guess I didn't realize that noting that he can "bumble the ball into the net by sheer will" was such an immensely positive review of his play that you'd get triggered by it. F*ck. I posted his numbers under Berhalter in the Best 11 thread a few days ago. I quote myself here in case you missed me talking about Gyasi's superhuman abilities and want to read what I said: "Zardes is definitely serviceable--he's been pretty productive for Berhalter with 6 goals and 1 assist in 16 games, 914 minutes (just over 10 games worth of minutes)." Which, if my math is correct (it is), amounts to right about where the rest of the guys you cited sit in terms of goal frequency, if we're only talking about goals per appearance (1g/2.66app for Zardes). Which is also pretty much "as good as any forward we've ever had". As far as the goals scored numbers you cite (12 goals in 11 games against FIFA top-75), why would that lack of goals fall on a single player anyway? This argument makes no sense. No one ever blamed Clint Dempsey for playing in games where we didn't average 2 goals. I also think Sargent will likely be a better fit for Berhalter, assuming he continues moving towards a false 9 role (or whatever term people want to call it). He's been very unproductive for the last year, but I will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt that it's just his team on account of seeing him with the YNT and MNT prior.
I suppose it's a matter of expectations. I never thought he was a great goal scorer or playmaker. I think he's like the best 8 in the world. His hot streak shocked the hell out of me. And, a lot of this can be filed under "reversion to the mean." It's too bad Lamps was fired, because Lamps encouraged him, compelled him, to be a scorer. Tuchs apparently still sees him as the same player he was 3 years ago. But, as Paul Berry says, he's going to settle in or move on. If he moves on, why would anyone think that, as talented as CP is, he won't find a great situation? Chelsea has been good for him. He's a better player than he was when he arrived.
Speaking of players who are actually playing, John Brooks is in the best form of his life as Wolfsburg continued their push for a CL spot with their seventh clean sheet in a row today. Kicker even included him on their leaderboards as the 12 best CB in the Bundesliga: https://www.kicker.de/bundesliga-winter-2020-21/innenverteidiger/rangliste Reyna also made the list in the "offense from the outside" category, that's winger I think for you conspiracy theorists.
In baseball development, the idea is once you show a skill you own it. Pulisic is that player and he will show it again. That level of play is so beyond what an American has ever demonstrated, that even if he is 60% that guy for the USMNT he is starting. His health is everything. That they value him enough to be so careful with him is all I care about. I hope he outgrows these muscle injuries.
John Brooks is on target to be a top center back in Qatar. He’s a special player. Everyone should enjoy him. He’s in his prime.
Chelsea ran off Mo Salah and Kevin De Bruyne. Being moved on from there is no permanent stain on a career. Pulisic only needs to play enough to stay sharp and happy as far as I'm concerned.
I think they might be underrating Brooks at the moment putting 11 center backs ahead of him. He’s been outstanding lately.
Cannon with a good couple of performances in a row. Boavista are now up to 14th in the table (out of the relegation zone) and trending in the right direction. 1362893300802314240 is not a valid tweet id
Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman said Sergino Dest switched off too many times in the 4-1 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in midweek and called on the USMNT international to be more aggressive.
Daryl Dike with the start today for Barnsley against Bristol City. 💪 THE BOYS 🟡⚫️🟡— Barnsley FC (@BarnsleyFC) February 20, 2021 Here's a potential Yankfest game in the Championship right now. Morris and Arriola on the bench for Swansea. Duane Holmes has started for Huddersfield. ⚠️ 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗫𝗜 ⚠️Here's how the #Swans line up for this afternoon’s match 🆚 @htafc... ▪️Unchanged from Wednesday.In association with @SwanseaUni 🎓 pic.twitter.com/EPavhLUcwK— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) February 20, 2021
A CB Yankfest in the Championship as well. Its CCV starting for Bournemouth and Geoff Cameron starting for QPR (with Charlie Kelman on the bench). CCV! 🇺🇸⚽️💪 pic.twitter.com/35p7esNZnY— 🇺🇸 ⚽ east (@eastdeflection) February 20, 2021
The good news rolls. Yelin starting for Galatasaray. That would have been a really notable piece of news a couple years ago. Ya know......................Yedlin has a decent shot to win the Turkish league this year. 📢 Aytemiz Alanyaspor karşısında ilk 11’imiz 👇#GALAXI #ALNvGS 💪 pic.twitter.com/IojR58gi53— Galatasaray SK (@GalatasaraySK) February 20, 2021