Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard has quite the responsibility on his hands to fit and give chance to so many talented attackers in his team. This will ensure some rotation upfront and that will likely upset the fans in some way or another.
But the fans are totally frustrated seeing what Frank Lampard is doing regarding Christian Pulisic and their frustration is justified. This is a clear mistake from Lampard and it is still unclear whether he is doing intentionally or unintentionally since the season started.
Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovic funded a lot of cash to make a squad overhaul as per Lamaprd’s choice this summer, and positions upfront was upgraded with the arrival of Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech joining from top European clubs. The total summer spending spree nearly touched £250m.
The season has just started and it has been two weeks since that Lampard is progressing to get a grip on his attacking players. he has a wide variety of offensive talent up front and it is a difficult task to formulate a system to get the best out of each as a whole. Despite so many major new faces, one player from the last season, Christian Pulisic is still a crucial figure in the team. The American winger was the stand-out performer for Chelsea last season where he single-handedly destroyed the opposition defence. It was his debut season for Chelsea and he took matters into his hands which made Lampard to give him the No.10 jersey in this season.
Pulisic suffered from a hamstring injury setback that occurred in the previous season’s FA Cup final and therefore missed the opening games for Chelsea. But he recovered well and since the international break, he is back into the starting XI. He played the full 90 minutes against both Southampton and Sevilla.
The 22 years old finished the last season in such a tremendous form that many were comparing him to the Chelsea legend and current Real Madrid forward, Eden Hazard. Hazard had a successful career in Chelsea and at times, he was totally unplayable due to his pace, dribbling, and directness in the final third. This same trait was shown by Pulsiic as he destroyed the Manchester City and Liverpool defences back to back on his own.
He is a quick winger who arrived as a highly-rated prospect from the German club, Borussia Dortmund. He is so talented that there can be a debate as to who is most talented in the squad amidst players like N’Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic, and the new faces that had joined this season.
Pulisic featured in 11 games after the COVID break in the previous season and he scored five goals completing four assists. He was instrumental in securing Chelsea the top four spots and the ticket to the Champions League. Despite being so effective in the left-wing, The Blues’ coach has deployed him on the right in two of his recent starts against Southampton and Sevilla.
He had a 10-minute cameo in the UCL goalless draw against Sevilla where he changed flanks over to the left. He looked totally dangerous as the left-winger there than he was as a right-winger in the whole match. This made the fans question Lamaprd’s odd decision to put Pulisic on right to accommodate Mason Mount on the left-wing.
The U.S star has thrived on the left-wing throughout the course of his footballing career before encountering relative struggles when deployed on the right. Pulisic does cross more from the right, but has significantly less touches in the opposition box, dribbles less, and ball carrying capacity becomes low.
Ultimately, this makes him more redundant and less effective. As Lampard continues to search for the right set-up in the offence, moving Pulisic to his favoured position can unleash the best out of his no.10 man.
Chelsea should build their team around Pulisic which is why Lampard should give him his preferred left-wing position in tomorrow’s game against Manchester United where he can run down their defenders and also make a cut inside the box to score plenty of goals.
