We’re deep enough into Chelsea’s season that stats actually mean something, and we’re far enough into Thomas Tuchel’s reign that we can start to see some consistency in his lineup decisions.
It was expected that Tuchel would be a big fan of Christian Pulisic, who had previously manager at Dortmund, but it hasn’t proven to be the case thus far in West London. The stats behind Pulisic’s season perhaps show us why.
FBRef have a good way of charting a player’s impact in attack – goals and penalties per 90 minutes – not including penalties.
Looking at Chelsea’s list, there’s Tammy Abraham way up at the top, while Pulisic is way down in XI. Kurt Zouma, Ben Chilwell and Reece James have all put up more attacking numbers than the US star so far this season.
It backs up what we’ve seen on the pitch really- Puli isn’t far off, and he has his moments, but it’s just not translating into goals and assists at the moment.
Pulisic my favrt