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What's next for Chelsea soccer standout Christian Pulisic?
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
Soccer in the English Premier League is played at a rapid, frenetic pace. The moves and machinations in the way the league does business often happen just as quickly.
The only constant is change, a reality Christian Pulisic, America’s best and highest-profile young player, is hastily discovering.
A few months back, as the EPL emerged from lockdown with a hectic stretch of games, Pulisic was the flavor of the month. Now he is struggling for playing time — much to the frustration of United States fans eager to see him succeed and, presumably, of the player himself.
"It is the challenge now to improve and hold his level and to maintain the level," Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel said recently. "The main thing for Christian is to stay positive, keep his head up and be ready. He can have a big impact when he starts, or off the bench, with his intensity."
On the surface, Tuchel’s comments didn’t seem to convey anything particularly negative. However, context is everything in the delicate balance between EPL players and the coaches making the key personnel decisions around them.
Tuchel’s remarks were the kind of thing you might expect to be directed toward a young, fringe squad player trying to break his way into the reckoning. Pulisic, 22, believed with some justification that he’d gotten far, far beyond that point since some early battles after he joined the club in 2019 on a $73 million deal.
When the EPL got going once more after its lengthy pause, Pulisic was one of the leading performers across the league, notching 11 goals and 10 assists in 34 games last season. His reputation had grown into that of one of the most exciting young players in the world.
The current campaign, however, has been a different story. Chelsea’s poor start led to former head coach Frank Lampard being ousted and replaced by Tuchel, and a series of injuries, particularly a hamstring strain sustained in the FA Cup final, have disrupted Pulisic’s efforts.
Tuchel previously worked with Pulisic during their shared time at Dortmund, but since he came in, he has used the player for just 192 minutes. Tuchel’s preference for deploying wing-backs as a form of sparking the attack leaves Pulisic in a more difficult position, as it is perceived that he is less effective in such a system.
Chelsea has no shortage of quality attackers, including Olivier Giroud, Mason Mount, Timo Werner, Kai Havertz, Tammy Abraham and Callum Hudson-Odoi. Ahead of Thursday’s clash with Liverpool, most British newspapers predict the three attackers will be either Mount-Giroud-Werner or Mount-Havertz-Werner, with Pulisic on the bench.
"It is tough luck and bad timing for Pulisic," Sky Sports News correspondent Aidan Magee told me. "He really didn’t do anything wrong, but as he has tried to overcome his injuries, Chelsea now has a new situation and, often, a new tactical setup. He showed everyone his ability to be one of the top players in the league, but it is a difficult fit at the moment."
The situation has been enough to get the rumor mill grinding, with reports that Bayern Munich could be interested in bringing Pulisic back to Germany if things do not work out in West London.
That sums up the strangeness of Pulisic’s situation quite well – currently surplus to requirements at the team in fifth position in the EPL but potentially coveted by the reigning European champion.
Regardless, the best option for Pulisic as things stand is to stay where he is and do what he can to turn the situation around. Tactical blueprints aren’t immune to the lingering EPL rule that everything changes sooner or later, and it wouldn’t take much – a loss of form or injury to any of the players ahead of him – to bring about a more preferable scenario.
Pulisic hasn’t lost any of his talent, and though he is scoring and assisting at a lower rate than he did last season, with his current limited opportunities, his form hasn’t cratered.
"The Premier League is a cutthroat circuit," the Washington Post’s Steven Goff wrote. "Coaches come and go like subway trains. The responsibility and expectation on players, regardless of jersey number, is heavy. A slight slip in form opens the door to a high-end substitute famished for minutes."
U.S. fans with an eye on World Cup qualifiers later this year will want Pulisic to be playing more regularly — and playing well — by then.
The tough part is … what to do about it? Without meaningful minutes, Pulisic’s only chances to impress the coach will be in practice. Angling for a move could prove to be woefully premature. As showed last season, Chelsea has the ability to be an excellent fit for him, if the circumstances are right.
Perhaps this was inevitable. Pulisic has enjoyed a remarkable rise since he burst through as a 17-year-old and made his international debut in 2016. By transferring to Chelsea, he took on the challenge of playing in arguably the most competitive league in the world.
The EPL doesn’t pause for breath, but he matched its energy and learned how to shine. Now comes the tough bit, the part he needs to get through to continue his upward trajectory.
In the fastest-moving league of all, he has hit a speed bump.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
