Christian Pulisic - His 2019/2020 season

[THREAD]

Last year, Borussia Dortmund has agreed with #cfc on the transfer of Christian Pulisic for a fee of £58M. After 1502 minutes in a Chelsea shirt and a long-term injury who has kept him away from the pitch since early January, let’s take a look at Pulisic’s season.

Pulisic is Chelsea’s third most influential player this season despite playing 1000 less minutes than both Willian and Abraham, Chelsea’s most influential players. Pulisic has 10 goal contributions this season, being Chelsea’s second most efficient player after Abraham.

Pulisic excels in a wide creator role. He is able to use his dribbling ability as well as his creativity on the wing. This is shown below, as he gets past his opponent to deliver a good ground cross to Batshuayi.

Indeed, Pulisic’s dribbling ability isn’t talked about enough. He is 11th in the league in terms of completed dribbles with 2.4 dribbles per 90 and a 57% success rate. In the Champions League, he is 9th with 3.5 completed dribbles per 90 and a 61% success rate.

Below, another clip who highlights Pulisic’s creativity. His ability to get away from his opponent thanks to a quick turn and to find a teammate in a pocket of space is the sign of a mercurial talent.

Bare in mind Pulisic is only 21 years old but he already has a very good output for someone of his age. When you compare him to other U21 wingers with 900+ minutes in the top 5 leagues, Pulisic is 3rd in xG+A. Only behind Sancho and Mbappe. Underrated stat.

My favorite games of him this season have been against Norwich, Burnley and Watford. The Norwich game being my favorite one. His dribbling in tight spaces and his ability to come in between the lines to receive caused a lot of troubles to Norwich. He also assisted a goal.

But his game against Burnley truly made him being considered as a serious baller. Chelsea won the game 4-2, Pulisic scored 3 goals. Only 6 Premier League players have scored a hattrick this season. Serious player.

Below, you can see Pulisic’s radars. On the left, this is him compared to forwards from the top 5 leagues. On the right, this is him compared to wingers from the top 5 leagues.

We can observe that both radars are very good for a 21 years old player but his forward’s radar begs the question of Pulisic’s best position. I still think he is better on the wing but he can be very good behind a striker.

About his favorite position when deployed as a winger, Pulisic has different profiles and is good on either wing but I prefer him on the left. More than half of his shots have been taken from the left and you can see below the location of his goals.

All in all, we can say that Pulisic is a very good player already. Chelsea were smart buying him and they opened up to a new market with Pulisic. Promising signs ahead.