With the exception of Belarus, South Korea and starting this Saturday, Germany, global football is currently suspended. The Premier League has been given the all clear by the government to restart after June 1, behind closed doors, and with that in mind, teams are now training awhile adhering to social distancing guidelines.
However, there are still plenty of questions to be answered when it comes to Project Restart, and we’ll learn more this week as meetings are held and votes taken. Until football returns, we still have plenty of news items to cover. For our latest batch of Chelsea transfer rumors go here.
Christian Pulisic says he’s out to prove his doubters wrong, once football starts up again. Out injured since New Year’s Day, he’s fully fit now and he did an exclusive with NBC, the Premier League broadcast rights holder in Pulisic’s home country of the United States.
During the interview, the 21-year-old American recalled the biggest moment in his Chelsea career thus far.
“It was my first start in a little while and I just had this motivation to go out and prove a lot of people wrong,” Pulisic said.
“I thought I had done okay so far but I hadn’t really shown everything that I could do so I think going into that game I had a kind of chip on my shoulder to go out and to prove to everyone. Once that first goal came my confidence just shot through the roof and I think it was just my day and everything just fell into place.”
There’s been plenty of Pulisic news during this quarantine. He made Lionel Messi’s top 15 global young rising stars list, named his footballing hero as Luis Figo, and saw his high potential articulated by teammate Marcos Alonso.
Elsewhere, N’Golo Kante is probably the team’s best overall player, and since Eden Hazard left, it’s hard to argue that anyone else on the current squad deserves that designation. Former Chelsea manage Antonio Conte has lavished extensive praise on Kante, saying the Frenchman is one of the best players he’s ever coached.
“In my opinion, he can play in every position in midfield. We are talking about an amazing player, a top player,” Conte told Sky Sports (h/t Evening Standard).
“He is amazing with and without the ball. When you have N’Golo in your team, you can think you are playing with one player more.
“You can find a smile on his face every day. He is a very positive guy. He is one of the best players I have had in my career as a coach.”
Chelsea winger Willian is out of contract this summer, and thus he’s been linked with a move to several teams, including both clubs that comprise the north London rivalry. Willian is basically the one that got away as he reached an agreement with Spurs in principle in 2013, and even underwent a medical with the club.
Then Chelsea made an 11th hour move and Jose Mourinho swooped in and claimed the Brazilian. A reunion with Mourinho could be in the cards now, but here’s what Mourinho said at the time, to rub salt in the wound:
“That’s the danger of medicals before contracts, but at the same time if you do the contract then the medical after, sometimes you can have a problem by signing a player with problems.”
“So you have to do the medical before, but the best thing to do is to do the medical in secret.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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