Just four days removed from a frustrating night in Toronto, Christian Pulisic rebounded with promising performance off the bench for Chelsea, helping set up a winning goal in his longest league appearance in more than a month.
Pulisic came off the bench in the 64th minute, and helped set up Marcos Alonso’s game-winning goal just nine minutes later as Chelsea posted a 1-0 victory over DeAndre Yedlin and Newcastle United on Saturday.
Pulisic connected with Callum Hudson-Odoi, who then played in Alonso for the eventual game-winning goal. Although it won’t go down as an assist, Pulisic should feel confident about his ability to impact the game.
Hey there, @cpulisic_10! 👋
Subs on and minutes later provides the hockey assist to help @ChelseaFC take the lead vs. @NUFC!
🇺🇸 ⚽️
— U.S. Soccer MNT (@USMNT) October 19, 2019
Pulisic finished with an 88% passing completion rate, while also winning two of his six duels and two aerial battles.
It was an encouraging performance for Pulisic, and came just four days after he left the U.S. Men’s National Team’s 2-0 loss to Canada as a 61st-minute substitution. Pulisic showed his frustration with being removed from the match, and voiced his overall frustration after the USMNT loss.
Yedlin started and played all 90 minutes for Newcastle on Saturday, but he was unable to help his side avoid defeat in London. He did however make a clearance earlier in the match to prevent Pulisic from an assist on a Tammy Abraham goal.
.@yedlinny with a goal-line clearance to prevent a @cpulisic_10 assist 😳 pic.twitter.com/bNxeLpnWLN
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) October 19, 2019
Chelsea moved into fourth place in the Premier League table after the win and return to Champions League play this week against Ajax.
Yedlin starts every week and nobody cares. Pulisic make a pass, a bad one at that, and this site loses its shit.
Pulisic didn’t get caught ball watching at the back post … AGAIN!
Looks like it was a good pass intended for Marcos Alonso, that Hudson-Odoi intercepted. Worked out for the best, though, as CHO drew the defenders to him, giving Alonso more space when the ball was eventually played to him.
Anyway, there’s dramatic overreaction when Pulisic doesn’t play, then dramatic overreaction when he plays and actually contributes to the team’s success. Welcome to the internet, Rob, you must be new around here.
He was on the bench and got subbed in on a week after international break. Historically, that is a big deal because many employees coaches in the past would sit USMNT players after a break. The guy got on the field and was part of a goal. That is improvement.
LOL you all reaching you all made it seem like he assisted. LOL Hudson-Odoi assisted Alonso goal. We reaching for Pulisic to come back to form it will come just stop reaching. LOL
In MLS it counts as an assist.