Chelsea FC left it late yesterday, but they got all three points at West Ham United, with Christian Pulisic coming off the bench to score in the 90′. He wasn’t the only big impact super-sub either as Romelu Lukaku won a penalty kick and Hakim Ziyech showed some lovely touches on the ball. So it’s very possible that all three now could start against Manchester United on Thursday night.
We’ll have preview content for that match tomorrow, in the meantime let’s look at some Chelsea news and notes items, starting with more on Pulisic.
The 23-year-old American was an unused substitute for the previous two matches, and a reporter asked Blues boss Thomas Tuchel if it was a good idea to give Captain America such limited playing time, given his Sunday afternoon heroics.
“If you ask him he would say it was not a good idea,” Tuchel responded to the question with a laugh.
“It is like this, especially with the strikers. He has a period when he was on the run, when he had the confidence and he was heavily involved up front and Timo [Werner] had to wait for many, many weeks. Now things turned around a little bit from the Southampton game.
“Puli struggled a little but since he came back from international break. Where I think he had three matches and incredible amount of journeys and time zones to cope with. From there he struggled a bit energy wise, that was my impression on and off the pitch. Sometimes it is like this.
“We tried to bring him back to full confidence from the bench and I’m happy with the effort today and I’m very happy that he had the chance to have this huge impact together with Romelu [Lukaku] and Hakim [Ziyech]. This is super important.”
Pulisic, who scored his first goal in over a month (Champions League round-of-16 match at Lille on March 16), said he’s eager to get more involved and increase his playing time.
“It was a massive goal. We had so much pressure on them for most of the game but we couldn’t get that breakthrough, so I am happy I was able to help out,” Pulisic said. “I needed to come in and make a difference, prove I want to be playing and I am happy I did that.”
“I always want to be on the pitch, to help my team and I am glad I got the opportunity today,” he added. “We played a good match and we got our deserved goal in the end.”
“It was a massive goal. We had so much pressure on them for most of the game but we couldn’t get that breakthrough, so I am happy I was able to help out,” Pulisic said.
We’ll see what happens with Captain America, both on Thursday and in the overall grand scheme of things. Elsewhere, Tuchel has confirmed that central defender Antonio Rudiger will leave the club at the end of the season. Real Madrid will be his destination.
An agreement has reached on this deal, and here’s a link to more on that.
Finally, we circle back to Lukaku, Chelsea’s all-time most expensive player and thus, no doubt, their biggest ever flop too. The big Belgian will almost certainly leave the club this season, but where does he go? Back to Inter Milan is plausible, but it would be based on a couple conditions.
Football Italia has more on Big Rom probably having to go out on loan, instead of getting a permanent deal, and his likely having to take a 50% pay cut.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.