Christian Pulisic is riding a hot run of form right now.
Pulisic scored on Friday for the fourth-straight match as AC Milan defeated Lecce 3-0 in Serie A play. In total, Pulisic has scored in each of his last five appearances for club and country, which is a career-best for the U.S. men’s national team star.
Alvaro Morata kicked things off for the Rossoneri in the 38th minute, flicking home a header off a set piece for a 1-0 lead.
Theo Hernandez doubled AC Milan’s lead three minutes later before Pulisic extended the hosts lead only two minutes. A frantic series in the box eventually led to Pulisic slamming home a rebound for a 3-0 advantage.
It marked Pulisic’s fifth goal of the season across all competitions.
AC Milan would be reduced to 10 men in the second half, but had little trouble fending off its visitors.
Pulisic logged 63 minutes in the match, continuing to be one of Paulo Fonseca’s best players this season.
The second-place Rossoneri resumes UEFA Champions League play on Tuesday against Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen.
@Vacqui – When you bring up what Chelsea paid for CPs transfer you are implying that not measuring up to the fee is proof of failure. If that was the case literally almost everyone they bring in “fails” by that measure. I don’t think it overly rose colored to look at performance when on the field any more than its overly pessimistic to count injuries or coaching decisions against a player. Was his time there a smashing success? No. Was is an abject failure? No. The reality is it was somewhere in the middle but honestly who freaking cares? The guy is firing on all cylinders now and putting all doubts to reast.
cmills000
“When you bring up what Chelsea paid for CPs transfer you are implying that not measuring up to the fee is proof of failure.”
“Imply: to indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated:”
I don’t have any problem with CP failing at Chelsea.
I do have a problem with denying reality and saying that he did not fail.
And I’m not “implying” anything. Let me be explicit.
CP’s Chelsea tenure was a failure. Christian failed at Chelsea. Is that clear enough?
The higher the price of a transfer the greater the expectation.
What you expect from your beater Chevy that cost a couple of bucks is very different from what you expect from your Porsche Cayman.
Aaronson cost Leeds something like 30 million. He’s doing better now but overall, given his performance since the transfer he has been an abysmal bust.
For a club like Leeds, 30 million should have gotten them a regular starter all these years but that is not what they got. Had he cost 10 million, expectations then get adjusted. You can say Leeds are lousy evaluators of talent but that does not make Brenden a genuine EPL midfielder.
You can argue that Chelsea is stupid with their money and somewhat unreasonable in terms of what they expect. But Christian knew damn well what was expected of him going in. If he did not think he could meet their expectations he should have turned down the transfer.
Please spare us all this quaint notion that the innocent, naïve Pulisic was taken advantage of by the greedy, stupid idiots at Chelsea. There is lots of blame to go around here. I won’t disagree that how Chelsea operates is hard to watch but them overpaying for Pulisic only changes the degree of his failure not the failure itself.
THE FAILURE
Christian pissed away a golden opportunity.
When you buy a very young guy for big money, the expectation is that in a few years he will become an important first team regular.
Or if he leaves after a few seasons, that he is sold for profit.
Neither thing happened.
He was a hot shot 20 or so player who was the last buy before a transfer ban. The transfer ban meant that they were forced to give him a chance to make his case. And he did well initially. Little competition. But after that his body kept breaking down. The transfer ban was lifted, and all kinds of competition flooded in.
Christian’s failure was in not using the time before the transfer ban was lifted to make himself indispensable. He should be a regular starter today for Chelsea.
Chelsea failed in paying too much for Pulisic but that does not absolve Christian from blame. He, or more accurately his body, blew a golden opportunity to be a regular for Chelsea. That’s where he should be today had he not failed. You can make a case that they should have kept him instead of selling him to Milan. Maybe under Maresca he would be a feature player at this point. And it will certainly be a talking point if Liverpool replace Salah with CP.
But every endeavor has a life expectancy and it seems pretty clear that CP and Chelsea were tired of each other by the time Christian left.
” If that was the case literally almost everyone they bring in “fails” by that measure. ”
Of course. It’s a tough world out there. This is true for almost all of those top clubs. You could take the guys, the failed transfers, who never see the field for Chelsea, Man U. Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool , etc. and you could probably put together a 26 man roster that would be more talented than the USMNT’s best 26 man roster.
That does not mean Christian did not also fail.
Almost everyone does fail at Chelsea but they have enough money to keep bringing them in until they get the right mix of player and manager.
It’s quite a show and most clubs would not operate that way, because they can’t.
This outrage over how Chelsea operates is pretty hypocritical.
When one of these UK clubs gets a big sugar daddy buyer with blood on their hands, what’s the first thing that usually happens? A buying spree.
And American sports team operate the same way or did before they instituted salary caps and other measures to promote parity. You may not remember when teams like the 49er’s and the Yankees would warehouse players just to keep them away from other teams.
I don’t know why people get so upset about Christian failing at Chelsea. It was good for him.
He learned a lot and would not be as good at Milan if he had not failed at Chelsea. And it did not really affect the USMNT since as best as I can tell he performed pretty well for the USMNT even when he was struggling at Chelsea. And he certainly got his money. He can probably afford his own SHEETZ franchise once he gets back to PA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpwlXXt-YEM
quozzel
Here you go.
I totally forgot about Landon’s comments.
What baffles me is that he has been open plenty of times the past two games and his teammates don’t make that extra pass. Dude could had a brace today and last week.
If he keeps this up he may not head back to MLS next season.
Latest fun rumour is that Liverpool are hot for him as a replacement for…………….Mo Salah.
Ironic in that Salah was also a failure at Chelsea and was bought by Liverpool from Serie A, in Salah’s case Roma.
Except Pulisic was not a failure at Chelsea
cmills000,
Really?? What about it was a success?
What about Pulisic’s time at Chelsea was a success for a guy they paid $70M for and sold for $25M?
Please. pray tell. I can’t wait to be educated.
@Papi of course no one is ever going to educate you… but I guess if dominating in the restart. Having a significant hand in winning the CL are the hallmarks of a failure then you got me there.
And you also of course know that the fact that Chelsea over paid for him (like they do on a consistent basis) doesn’t make him a failure it makes them a failure.
Gotta agree. It is Chelsea that is the failure.
cmills000,
CP was bought by Chelsea in 2019 for 64 million euros.
In 2023 he was sold to Milan for 25 million euros, give or take.
He started out as a starter and had some success at Chelsea. most notably winning the Champions league.
But by 2023 he was an injury prone, barely used starter. Chelsea couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. Calling his time at Chelsea anything but a failure is a overly rose colored glass, keg half-full attitude.
cmills000,
Agreed, post-COVID, he was Chelsea’s best player for 3 months.
Your assessment of his impact on Chelsea winning the Champions League is revisionist history. He scored 2 goals in 10 games…had 2 starts in the 8 knockout round games. He was primarily a sub. Calling that a “significant hand” is blatantly overstating things.
Not to mention his time on the sidelines with countless injuries.
Three months of quality in a 4 year career at Chelsea is not a success, it’s a clear failure. That is why he had to seek life elsewhere.
Recognize.
Pulisic was headed back to MLS?
Is this tongue-in-cheek or was that truly a rumor?
I think there were a couple people who suggested Pulisic should come to MLS after Chelsea because he’d be assured playing time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpwlXXt-YEM
quozzel
Here you go.
In claiming that Pulisic was a failure at Chelsea you are assuming that Chelsea makes sensible player moves and then makes the best use of its personnel. Considering their massive turnover of both players and managers and their failure to even challenge the top dogs like Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal, indicates to me, at least, that Chelsea is hardly a good guide by which to judge the worth of players. There are many ex-Chelsea players, as I pointed out yesterday, who are doing quite well with other clubs. A Pulisic teammate is Loftus Cheek who was also a Chelsea “cast-off.” Another ex-Chelsea player now with Milan is Tammy Abraham whom Chelsea sold off right after he scored 18 goals for Chelsea. Tell me again about how Chelsea is such a good judge of player talent.
Gary,
Who said anything about Chelsea’s ability to judge of talent?
I never once said that how Chelsea goes about things is the best way to do it. I said I don’t give a fuck how they operate,
I said CP failed there. A 40 million euro drop in his sale price 3-4 seasons later tells you that.
Judging talent is not the issue anyway.
Just about everyone on the first team at Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool , Arsenal, etc. is very, very talented.
Many if not most of the second eleven of those teams would be walk in starters for the USMNT based on talent alone.
The question is:
1. Do they fit what the manager wants to do better than their competition?
2. Are they sturdy, healthy enough to be available and ready when their turn to make their case comes up?
3. Are they mentally tough enough to deal with the challenges that come with playing for those big clubs?
CP failed because his body failed him. His injuries came just as he was about to “break out” so to speak. Because Chelsea have so much depth, a guy like CP has to impress immediately upon return from injury. CP probably tried too often to come back from injury too soon. Eventually, the various managers lost confidence in him and he lost confidence in himself.
CP has nothing to be ashamed of. After all Jason Sudeikis of Ted Lasso once was in Horrible Bosses2. You can recover from failure.
Well well well, look atcha boi! CP10 us in a purple patch.