Christian Pulisic has just been taken off after an hour for Chelsea, with the American receiving a great round of applause from Stamford Bridge after his first start in 2 months.
It wasn’t exactly vintage, but he worked hard and the fans appreciated he’s only just getting back up to speed.
Now that Graham Potter has settled on using Kai Havertz as one of two players behind the striker in a 343, the striker spot has been opened up – so far Raheem Sterling looks Potter’s favourite there as a sort of false 9, with Pulisic today getting the chance to get ahead of Mykhailo Mudryk in the pecking order.
What’s worrying for Mudryk is that even with Pulisic coming off, he wasn’t the chosen man off the bench. Of course Potter is changing to a more defensive shape by bringing on Conor Gallagher, but the Ukrainian still can’t be delighted by the decline in his minutes.
The Gallagher for Pulisic substitution appeared to be an effort to secure the lead, but should we have perhaps kept the pedal to the metal? Seems like Chelsea are still lacking that little bit of urgency (needed to convert 70% first-half possession into goals!). And when you sub off one of the only guys in Blue who will run at a defender it can’t help but further dampen that urgency. While I can understand Potter is thinking pragmatically, on home turf you kind of would like to see more of killer instinct to go ahead and get that second or third goal instead starting to close up shop with 30 mins remaining.
He needs to learn that!