Jase

Pulisic injury woes leave Chelsea lacking natural width in 4-3-3 formation https://theathletic.com/2256729/2020/12/13/christian-pulisic-chelsea-injury-worry/ The frustration in Frank Lampard’s voice was palpable. Chelsea’s head coach had just been asked by The Athletic if it’d been a tough decision to leave Christian Pulisic out of his match-day squad for the 1-0 defeat at Everton because of a minor hamstring complaint. “It wasn’t hard,” Lampard replied. “It was just a fact. He was uncomfortable in training this week and yesterday (Friday). He couldn’t play 90 minutes or start a game in the Premier League.” This has been an all too regular occurrence for Lampard since he took over in July last year. The USA international, who was signed from Borussia Dortmund for £57.6 million, has been a regular absentee. In the 50 Premier League games Chelsea have played under their former star midfielder, Pulisic has now started just 21 of them — an underwhelming 42 per cent. Even if you add in his nine appearances as a substitute, it still works out at a disappointing return of 60 per cent of their top-flight fixtures. The statistic is even worse when we look across all competitions. Pulisic has been in the first XI on 31 occasions out of 76 fixtures played (40.8 per cent) and got onto the pitch 55.3 per cent of the time overall (includes 11 substitute appearances). Obviously, this is nowhere near enough for such a key player who was bought for a lot of money to inject some quality into Chelsea’s attack. Pulisic’s return of 13 goals and 10 assists from the matches he has been involved in — which means he has either created a goal or found the net virtually once every two appearances — shows he can do just that when available. It is alarming then, that he is missing so often. “Christian is a work in progress,” Lampard admitted after Chelsea’s line-up had been announced at Goodison Park. “I don’t want to call this an injury he had in midweek. If the game had been a different type of game, maybe I would have used him (today). I just have to find the right way to get the best out of him regularly and consistently.” Pulisic shares Lampard’s angst. Sources have told The Athletic the 22-year-old gets really down when he is not able to take to the field. This is not an individual who is using any slight twinge as an excuse to declare himself unfit. Pulisic’s mentality has been described as one where, when injured, he is desperate to play and when in the team, he wants to play every single minute. This mindset is why Chelsea agreed to let him join up with the USA squad last month, even though there was no chance of him adding to his 34 caps in their games against Wales and Panama. The attacking midfielder lives on his own and it was felt he would be better off being surrounded by familiar faces, being in the camp, than just dwelling on things for long periods at home. Another insider reveals that the club soon became aware of a fragility following his arrival from Dortmund, where he also picked up various niggles. Figures from Transfermarkt.com say he sat out 73 days in his last campaign at the Bundesliga club in 2018-19. There was a reason why Lampard didn’t start him in the Premier League for almost two months in his debut season between September 1 and October 25. It is understood the club have been looking to build strength in certain muscles to try to alleviate Pulisic’s problems, but it is a complicated process. The suspicion is that he is particularly susceptible to these kinds of issues due to the way he plays and his extraordinary pace. It was while displaying this burst of speed that he pulled up with a bad hamstring strain during the FA Cup final loss to Arsenal in August, an injury which, with the shorter summer break, meant he missed the start of the new season. The timing of Pulisic’s latest setback couldn’t have been any worse as Chelsea’s other recognised wide players, Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi, were already ruled out against Everton with hamstring injuries of their own. Striker Timo Werner has been selected consistently on the left-hand side in recent weeks, so playing the Germany international there yesterday didn’t alter their tactics, but Lampard decided to move Kai Havertz out to the right flank to compensate for the forced omissions of Pulisic, Ziyech and Hudson-Odoi. It meant Chelsea had no natural width from their attacking players in the 4-3-3 formation. Opta’s statistics show the full-backs, Reece James (seven, a figure matched by midfielder Mason Mount) and Ben Chilwell (five), provided a lot of the open-play crosses from the visitors. Havertz didn’t put one into the box in his 68 minutes — the only other Chelsea players, including the two substitutes, who failed to do that were goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and centre-back Kurt Zouma — while Werner managed it on just three occasions. No wonder striker Olivier Giroud was a rather anonymous figure. It is games like this, where it was going to take a bit of magic to open up Everton’s well-organised backline, that Pulisic could have made the difference. Lampard has already ruled Ziyech and Hudson-Odoi out for the next game, away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, on Tuesday night and sounded rather uncertain about Pulisic’s involvement too. Given Chelsea have four fixtures in the space of 13 days over the festive period, starting with West Ham United next Monday and ending with Manchester City on January 2, he will be wary of taking any risks with Pulisic that might see him miss a crucial period completely. But this is a situation that needs to improve. Chelsea’s task of competing for the Premier League and Champions League in 2021 will certainly be a lot harder if they aren’t able to use an individual of Pulisic’s quality on a constant basis.

We would have been alright had CHO and Ziyech not gotten injured as well. It's just BS that all 3 of our wingers are injured at the same time! On this injury note, I'm almost scared of the free week that we will have after West Ham.....

Down to 4th. Will be down to 5th if Leicester win later...fan-fucking-tastic!

No, not Mount. Not necessarily him.

Well if you're gonna do the same with others here about other players, then... 🤷‍♂️

You have been waiting for this, haven't you?

But here's the thing (a) surely Lampard gotta consider Pulisic's injury record when searching for a wide player and (b) when we play Werner out wide, we practically lose an attacking outlet because he isn't a winger and he isn't going to consistently beat players and dribble past them to create chances. I mean, how often in games this season that we attack through Werner? Not often and it's a reason why we always attack down our right, looking to Ziyech or James to deliver the crosses in. Moreover, playing Werner on the left wing may have also impacted Chilwell's attacking input on the left. Compared to James, Chilwell certainly isn't charging up and down the left flank as often as James does on the opposite side.

But another issue is that we aren't exactly playing or using him in a position where he can consistently get at the end of chances. You have games like yesterday where he just spent too much time out wide, doing winger things when he isn't a winger. Maybe I'm being biased (lol) but between him, Giroud and Abraham, I'd back Werner to score more goals out of the three, especially given his goalscoring record in his career so far. Perhaps circumstances have forced Lampard to play Werner out wide more than he has liked but if we are going to use him out wide more often than not and play him like a winger, then you gotta wonder why we didn't just sign an out-and-out winger instead. Instead, it looks like we're filling square pegs in round hole at times by playing Werner out wide.

That's the thing. We can't control everything in a cup game. May need to win via a penalty shootout sometimes. It's Bayern's problem that they fucked up but that and the shootout gave us arguably the best night of our lives as Chelsea fans.

The thing is, we aren't asking Mendy to sweep high up the field a la Neuer. It's only inside the box and yesterday's mistake was just pure stupid. He really didn't need to come out at all when there was one defender there to deal with the danger! It's more of just brainfart decision making than anything else. It's 2 errors now in 2 consecutive league games. This better not become a thing.

Is Lozano really a good option though? Has only scored 11 goals and provided 3 assists in 49 appearances for Napoli.

You might as well say the same about Pulisic too. And don't think Robben ever sorted his injury problems. He usually played a few games, got injured, returned and played a few games and then got injured again. Rinse and repeat. If we are going to buy a winger, I'd rather we just get someone who has a clean injury record, or close to one at the very least.

But Dembele is injury prone. Do we really need another one of such player?

Would you say that for Munich 2012?

If only we still have Willian.

Eh? If we play the back 3, then there is less emphasis on the wide attacking players - Werner and say Havertz - to provide the width and they can operate a lot closer to the striker. The back 3 worked well against Wolves in both matches last season, although Nuno has started going with the back 4 recently. So, I guess the matchup will be different this time but not a fan of us playing the 4-3-3 with square pegs in round hole if Pulisic isn't available for this one (don't think he will be) or if we don't have any natural wingers available.

Yes, although things started to go downhill from the 13th game onward last season.

Wolves 2-1 Chelsea PRE/POST-MATCH DISCUSSION, LIVE CHAT AND ANALYSIS 2020/21 Premier League Match 13 15th December, Tuesday 2020 Molineux Stadium 18:00 Kick Off (UK time)

We had more points after 12 games last season (26) than we have after the same number of games this season (22)...

Was the logic of playing Abraham and Werner out wide with Giroud in the middle in the 4-3-3???

After 12 Premier League games: 2019/20: W - 8 D - 2 L - 2 Pts - 26 Pos. - 3rd 2020/21: W - 6 D - 4 L - 2 Pts - 22 Pos. - 3rd (could be overtaken on Sunday)

Imagine playing a player in a role that isn't suited him and then we're surprised that he plays poorly...

It happened in midweek as well but the thing just doesn't make sense whatsoever. Werner also used to be a winger but it's clear that he isn't one and so is Abraham.

Yes and no one is asking him to do that again but maybe a little flexibility wouldn't hurt. Lampard has gone from changing formation every week to not changing it at all. Fair enough that he hasn't been changing at all because we have been playing well and all that but since our wingers are out injured, maybe it's worth wondering whether we should change it to a back 3 for example because this nonsense of Abraham and Werner flanking Giroud is utter nonsense!