Christian Pulisic was the fourth signing that AC Milan got over the line in the current summer window, and he has already established himself as being among the most important players.
Calciomercato.com write how Pulisic’s arrival serves the purpose of being able to shift the balance of the attacking threat away from being entirely on the left flank, because Milan had become too Leão-dependent.
Stefano Pioli knew that if his side had an ideal right winger for reading spaces and taking them up, then they could score beautiful goals and create numerical superiority, which then gives more space to Leao.
The American’s debut in the Rossoneri shirt went beyond all expectations because in the first half there wasn’t an opponent capable of countering him in any area of the pitch. He was literally everywhere.
The Junior Messias-Alexis Saelemaekers duo made an important contribution in the Scudetto-winning season, but the idea of reliability has been ditched in favour of having game changers who can actually make a difference and provide threat.
Pulisic and Samuel Chukwueze have an abundance of attacking talent, while the former can also play as an attacking midfielder or on the left side if needed.
At 25 Pulisic is already an experienced and competent player, a luxury for Serie A. It took Pulisic ten minutes to show what he can do, and now he is indispensable for Pioli in view of a challenging first 10 games of the season.
Just the big ‘if he can stay fit’ disclaimer
In fairness, he’s been absent due to injury as much as James/Chilly/Kante/etc. IMHO, as a non-English player competing for minutes against England internationals on one of England’s biggest teams, in a World Cup year + massive £ spent on Mydruk, Sterling, Werner, Havertz, etc., the “injury” issue is over stated.