Christian Pulisic scored yet another decisive goal for AC Milan last night, finding the back of the net against Genoa. It ended up being the winner and the Rossoneri are no longer reliant on Rafael Leao.
The American arrived at the club for a fee of around €20m in the summer and he has scored four goals so far. As highlighted by Calciomercato.com, all four of them have been very important, breaking the deadlock in all of those games which Milan went on to win.
As things stand, there’s no match between Pulisic and Samuel Chukwueze, who didn’t have the best of games last night. However, the increased importance of the American has eased some pressure off of Rafael Leao’s shoulders.
Milan are no longer dependent on Leao and this is indeed very important for Stefano Pioli’s side. The Portuguese winger remains the strongest player, but with the positive performances of Pulisic the Rossoneri are a lot more unpredictable.
Pioli is hoping that the alternatives Noah Okafor and Samuel Chukwueze will get going as well, but they evidently need some more time.
How much would he be rated yesterday if he didn’t score? 5.5. Great goal but nothing else apart from that. It also happened in a few other matches. I thought he is a better player, who creates chances, dribbles etc. I don’t see that but he is scoring goals, so great.
Tkoje – Pulisic contributes in other ways besides scoring. He’s had several assists, including from corner kicks and a pass from the left wing that Loftus-Cheek banged in from way out. His off-the-ball movements we’re effective as Genoa bunkered in but no winger, including Leao, would have been effective v Genoa. The only way to beat a bunker is on the counter, which Milan didn’t do well.
…I always thought that scoring goals was the objective? He did score 🙂 He is contributing much more at Chelsea, which never gave him a chance. So happy he’s playing for us here.
“How much would he be rated yesterday if he didn’t score?”
LOL. We’re not allowed to use that line for Leao. EVER. Then why should you be allowed to use that on Pulisic? 😀
The rosoneri are predictable af imao. Especially against teams like genoa and 2/3 of serie a clubs want to play like genoa against Milan..
Puli has netted some goals, true, but 4 example against bvb he was nowhere..
A lot of these wins were plain lucky. But that’s ok. You need luck and it’s better to have it than not.
Milan isn’t the one who predictable when many of serie-a team always sit deep on their own teritory and just waiting for counter.
Isn’t it? All the traffic goes through the left. The right side barely makes it pass the middle line.
Besides can you blame them? Put yourself into their shoes. Would you play toe to toe with top table clubs?
I guess you only watched one or two matches if you think ‘all traffic from the left’ lol. Even today goal came from the right side.
And you agreed the predictable ones here are the small-mid club who always plays very defensive against Milan. End of discussion.
Bruh. Just shut the fûck up. It’s obvious you’ve no proper knowledge about football
No no no. You should go find a mirror and tell yourself to STFU. End of story kid.
NO, U!
It’s on Pioli, the tactical genius, to figure out how to unlock defensive teams. It seems the strategy is to pray that one of our stars has a moment of magic to score a goal. That’s not something to hang your hat on.
Chukwueze was okay when vs Genoa, with his dribbles. He can dribble & beat his marker better than Pulisic. But his movements are pretty predictable : Comes deep to get ball, run with ball often, stay wider, cut inside while at final third.
And Pulisic has off the ball movements so much better, Pulisic is so smart tto find spaces.
Okafor was okay too, but when vs Genoa he should score a goal, if he make the touch to shot on goal, not control the the ball. He should do the first-time shot in that moment.
I agree with you. Also he is 100% much better is defending. Pulisic reminds of Leao when defending, Chukwueze is trying hard to get his man. But what is it worth when he has 0 assists and goals. It will come but he needs more time to adapt.
Other than that, he has croation passport like previous season tradition where there is a croation player in the team.
Isn’t that obvious?
This season Milan have 7 players who already scored:
Giroud with 4 goals
Pulisic with 4 goals
Leao with 3 goals
Okafor with 2 goal
RLC with 1 goal
Tomori with 1 goal
Theo with 1 goal
I’m sure other players such as Reijnders, Chuk, Adli, Florenzi, Calabria, and even Pobega will score too.
If you check who assisted and from where did Giroud penalties come, it paints a bit different picture. But the midfield is lacking, defenders have more goals. They need to stop wasting chances.
If you check the stats, Giroud has 3 assist, Musah 1 assist, RLC 1 assist, Reijnders 1 assist, and Calabria 1 assist. All combine 7 assist vs Leao 3 assist.
End of story.
I agree that the midfield is lacking a bit in terms of offensive production. It may have more to do with Pioli’s tactics. That said, I want to point out that Reijnders needs to work on his shooting in training. He seems get two or three scoring opportunities each game and he doesn’t manage to convert them. Either the shot is poor or he decided to attempt a pass. He needs to be more decisive and technical with his shooting. He could also have have 3-4 goals by now.
Stop knocking and start praising our team …
I love when Giroud pulisic and reafeo play as the foward line …They seem to have a good understanding with one another ,,,and are not as rushed as the players who started up front against Genova ..But we needed to make changes to give players a rest ,with such a busy schedule..
I fully expect to see our goalkeeper Olivier Giroud 🙃🙃🙃🙃😂😂😂 starting up front against juventus..
Yes alongside pulisic and Rafeaol leao ..
Well done Olivier …Man of the match ..I watched you play so many times over the years ,but never ever thought I would see you between the sticks .
Coming onto the real plus …remember what I said at the very beginning of the season ..that is that I believe we will win the scuddeto this season ..
We are top fans ….
I guess that’s why they brought him in as a sub yesterday….you know, because things were going so well…
One of the things that helps Pulisic’s decision making is his fondness for playing speed chess where to be good (and he excels) you have to quickly make the right decision). I love the team chemistry of this team. Chelsea was a different team: lots of stars but a toxic changing room.
Pulisic used to be an explosive pacy dribbler like Leao but he suffered a major injury at the end of his first year with Chelsea…than he had a setback re-injury as he was rehabbing….. After he finally came back, we started noticing he was a bit less explosive than before.
Than he suffered another injury…once he got back from that injury, that’s when I personally notice he had lost his explosiveness.
Saying that, he has still retained his good off the ball poaching movement around the box which allows him to score goals…but he’s no longer the explosive dribble that Chelsea had hoped could duplicate Eden Hazard ability on the ball.
That’s an excellent point, but I don’t know if Pulisic has actually lost his explosiveness or he has realized that he can’t turn on the maximum afterburner jets without getting another muscle tear and so is just dialing everything down a couple of notches.
His big major muscle tear was on June 6, 2020 in the FA cup match against Arsenal, when he accelerated past a couple of Arsenal players and then pulled up lame. This took him out for 156 days.
The following 2020 season was when he began having a nearly unending series of muscle injuries which kept him out of the Chelsea starting lineup, at a time when Frank Lampard was actually hoping he’d be available to start and rescue his job.
According to Transfermarkt Pulisic had:
calf strain Aug 22, 2020 – 21 days out.
hamstring injury Oct. 4, 2020 – 63 days out.
muscle injury Nov. 27, 2020 – 24 days out.
I remember Lampard talking about needing to put Pulisic on a special training regimen of his own in order to deal with this constant series of muscle injuries.
And then, after that, the muscle injuries stopped. This was when it became noticeable that Pulisic was no longer as explosive as he was before.
I don’t think that he necessarily lost that explosiveness because of the injuries. It’s more likely that he finally learned how to listen to his body and muscles and dial down the power of his own muscles so as to avoid another muscle tear.
The injuries he suffered after that were all contact injuries, a direct result of Pulisic’s aggressiveness and fierce determination to win.
The most aggregious injury was the high ankle sprain he suffered Sept 8, 2021 during a USMNT World Cup qualifier against Honduras (transfermarkt has the date wrong as Oct. 31).
The non-sentient lifeform USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter had started a bunch of useless traffic cone MLS players in this key qualifier (key because the USMNT had lost or tied its previous matches because of Berhalter’s really bad coaching, and was now desperate for points to qualify for the World Cup).
In the match, the USMNT fell behind 0-1, mainly because of Berhalter’s awful MLS selections in the defense and midfield.
Pulisic went Total Hero Ball and decided to win the match all by himself. I remember him dropping back all the way into the defensive third to win the ball back himself and then carrying it up the midfield and into the offensive half to try to score, bypassing all the useless MLS midfielders who literally scooted out of his way because he sure wasn’t going to waste his time by passing the ball to them.
Well, as you can imagine, especially with the sort of awful WWE/MMA levels of CONCACAAF refereeing, the fouls started coming from Honduras and they hacked and hacked away at Pulisic until he finally got that high ankle sprain and literally had to hobble off the field with pain all over his face.
But by then, thanks to Pulisic’s heroics, the USMNT had come back and scored 4 unanswered goals and Berhalter’s job was saved.
That injury REALLY hurt his career at Chelsea because Chelsea that season had bought its latest shiny new trio of forwards and Pulisic never got his starting job as a wing forward back under Tuchel.
To this day, I blame Gregg Berhalter for getting Pulisic injured in that match and wrecking his career at Chelsea by starting all those useless traffic cone MLS players in that match and forcing him to carry the whole team on his back.
Few of you Milan fans have watched that match between the USMNT and Honduras. Unless you are or were USMNT fans, none of you would have had reason to have seen it, but in that match, you would have seen Pulisic at his finest, a guy with the heart of a lion, a true champion, and winner, giving his all for his country, in a way that is just inconceivable for normal European football. I watched that match, horrified at Berhalter’s awful coaching.
Anyway, Pulisic’s most recent injury at Chelsea, a knee injury March 5, 2023, was also a contact injury, in a match against Man City. He was racing in on goal for a pass, and the thug John Stones did a slide tackle into his knee, knocking him out for 59 days. It should have been a PK, but the English referees had long stopped calling ANY FOULS on English players who smashed into Pulisic (I am so not kidding there – it was really obvious the favoritism they had for English players, and refusing to call obvious fouls on Pulisic – other teams had figured this out and had started to neutralize him by just simply kicking him in the legs any time he got the ball, because the awful English referees would NEVER call a foul).
Yeah, I’m really, really glad to see Pulisic get out of Chelsea and the English Premiere League and I think Milan are a perfect team for him and Pioli’s style of play fits him well.
The one big thing that none of you guys have noticed or mentioned when comparing him to Chuk, is that Pulisic DOES NOT ACTUALLY PLAY LIKE A TRUE RIGHT WING FORWARD.
No, Pulisic plays more like a right sided false 9, constantly darting into the middle to try to score, because you know, it’s much easier to score in front of the goal than from the far right wing position. ALL of his four goals have come from him cutting into the middle of the field.
Pulisic doesn’t really do the things that a classic right wing forward does, which is to drive hard and fast downfield and cross to the middle. Chuk does that, or he has started to do that better in recent games.
So the two guys are really giving Milan completely different looks and skill sets.
Like many others, I’d be in favor of a 4-2-3-1, with Pulisic in as an attacking midfielder or false 9 behind a central striker. Because that’s what he is actually playing anyway, only from the right side.