USMNT star on the move
Chelsea’s summer clear out seems set to rumble on with remarkable speed, following the departure of no less than ten first team players for fees amounting to around €240.80 million. And US men’s national team player Christian Pulisic is now one of those players departing Stamford Bridge to join Serie A side AC Milan. Both Chelsea and Milan confirmed the transfer on Thursday. The Premier League club will receive an initial €20 million plus €2m in bonuses, which is just below Pulisic’s €25m market value.
Milan managed to beat out Ligue 1 side Olympique Lyon, which according to The Athletic made an offer of around €25 million. Although financially more attractive, Pulisic always preferred Serie A as the next destination. Either way, Chelsea were always unlikely to recoup the €64m they spent on the player when they signed him from Borussia Dortmund in January 2019. So why hasn’t Pulisic worked out at Chelsea to the extent that clubs around Europe are offering mere fractions of his previous transfer fee to sign him this summer?
One leg tied behind his back – Pulisic’s injury record at Chelsea
Like many players across the history of football, Pulisic has always had more than enough talent to thrive at Chelsea but has unfortunately found himself victim to the misfortunes of his own body. And as such, the US international has spent much of his time at the London club either recovering from injuries or missing out on opportunities because of his time spent on the sidelines.
Indeed, over the course of his four seasons at the club, Pulisic has missed a total of 53 games through a series of injuries, which averages out at around 13 games per season. This, in turn, means that he has made 145 appearances across all competitions in that time, averaging 36 games per season. However, many of those appearances were as a substitute from the bench, which is illustrated by the fact that the player’s average game time in the Premier League at Chelsea works out at 1,389 minutes per season. Which works out at a paltry 40% of total game time in the English top flight.
A victim of circumstance – Chelsea’s chaotic transfer policy
However, while injuries have undoubtedly held Pulisic back, they don’t tell the full story of the winger’s struggles at Chelsea. Plenty of injury-prone players carve out roles at their clubs and remain vital members of their teams. But in the US international’s case at Stamford Bridge, he simply hasn’t been allowed to do that due to the sheer volume of players that have arrived over the past three or four seasons and many of them have been direct competitors to Pulisic.
For example, since making his move to Chelsea in 2019, Chelsea have signed no less than 10 forward players that could directly or indirectly keep Pulisic out of the club’s starting XI. These vary from big-name signings like Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner, who joined the club just 12 months after Pulisic, or indeed the arrival of Romelu Lukaku, Raheem Sterling or Mykhaylo Mudryk on big transfer fees, to even the more discrete signings like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Noni Madueke and David Datro Fofana, who could all play in Pulisic’s wide positions.
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Indeed, when we add the initial fee for João Félix and his loan move to the club last season to the tally, it works out at no less than €482 million spent on forward players since Pulisic joined Chelsea. Which is undoubtedly a scenario which even the most talented and hard-working players would struggle to contend with and indeed thrive in. And goes some way to explaining why the forward hasn’t quite been the same player he was at Dortmund at this chaotic Premier League club.
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