Christian Pulisic remained in Chelsea’s starting lineup on Wednesday at Elland Road and rewarded Thomas Tuchel’s faith by scoring a goal to help the Blues move closer to securing a UEFA Champions League place for next season.
Pulisic scored the second of Chelsea’s three goals in West Yorkshire on Wednesday, helping the Blues all but clinch a top-four finish with a 3-0 road victory over Leeds United. The U.S. men’s national team attacker followed up his strong performance on Saturday by pushing Jesse Marsch and Leeds United closer to relegation with two matches left to play.
After Mason Mount propelled Chelsea in front after only four minutes, the Blues kept their foot on the gas with Leeds United reduced to 10-men after Daniel James’ first-half red card. Mount’s layoff at the top of the Leeds United box was eventually tucked away by Pulisic, who left Illan Meslier flat-footed on his goalline.
Pulisic was substituted off in the 78th minute, but watched from the sidelines as Chelsea added a third goal through Romelu Lukaku’s finish in the 83rd minute. The 23-year-old completed one dribble, made four recoveries, and completed 87% of his passes, to go along with his goal.
Pulisic will now prepare for an FA Cup Final on Saturday at Wembley Stadium vs. Liverpool. The Blues lost to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup Final back in late-February, with Pulisic playing 74 minutes in the eventual shootout defeat.
While Chelsea moved closer to clinching a top-four finish, Jesse Marsch and Leeds United ended the night in the bottom three on goal difference. Leeds United has lost three-in-a-row and will conclude the league schedule with matches vs. Brighton & Hove Albion and at Brentford.
Marsch and Leeds will also need 17th place Burnley to slip up in its final matches against Tottenham, Aston Villa, and Newcastle United, to have any chance of staying in the top-flight for next season.
Time to root for all of Burnley’s opponents!
Well…that’s great for Christian Pulisic…and really, really bad – like, nail-in-the-coffin bad – for Jesse Marsch.
At some point you have to figure an American coach will get an opportunity at a Prem club that is NOT in the relegation whirlpool or had NOT just sold a bunch of its players and not replaced them like RB Leipzig just did, but that’s also how it goes when you’re an American coach in Europe. You get what you get, and you do your best to make lemonade out of those lemons.
Here’s hoping Marsch can get a good look in a plus situation at some point. I think the man can coach.
Q – Leeds is done yet. They need to get more points in their next two than Burnley in their next three but Burnley plays Totenham so that is probably a loss. I expect it will gondown to the last day.
Isn’t
If you look at G or A per 90 mins Pulisic has been better than both Havertz and Werner this season in EPL. Werner is the best of the 3 in CL play. Chelsea fans are going to bash whomever isn’t on top form at the time, but I think they also saw him with 5g 4a in 11 matches (all competitions) post Covid and expected that to continue. Last season he had a goal or assist every 4 matches this season g or a every 3. Chelsea fans are objective but you can understand some frustration if your objective too.
Sorry “Chelsea fans aren’t objective”
Neither are USMNT fans