Christian Pulisic injury news is something both Chelsea and USMNT fans are, sadly, way too familiar with.
Pulisic suffered another setback during Chelsea’s shocking 5-2 home defeat against West Brom as the Premier League returned from the international break.
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Speaking ahead of Chelsea’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against FC Porto in Seville (neutral venue) on Wednesday, Blues boss Thomas Tuchel confirmed that Pulisic is ‘fit enough’ to be in the squad for the first leg, along with N’Golo Kante and Tammy Abraham
“They are fit enough to be in the squad which is good news,” Tuchel said. “Christian went out before the accident and right before the injury could happen, so he said it at half time he feels like if he continues it will be an injury coming so we needed to take him off.”
That makes it sound like he will not start against Porto, and that Pulisic’s decision to come off at half time was a good one as serious damage was averted.
Thank goodness for that.
What happened to Pulisic against West Brom?
Pulisic, 22, started as one of the two No. 10’s in Tuchel’s 3-4-2-1 formation and looked sharp early on as he scored just his second Premier League goal of the season to put them 1-0 up. However, Chelsea went down to 10 men before half time and that totally changed the complexion of this game as Pulisic was whipped off at half time in what was believed to be a tactical substitution.
But that wasn’t the case according to Tuchel, and it was certainly a strange situation as Pulisic came out for the second half like normal with Timo Werner believed to have been subbed off for Mason Mount. But then Pulisic sprinted out to the pitch, five yards, felt something and went over to the bench and it appears he told Tuchel he wasn’t able to carry on.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Tuchel confirmed that Pulisic tweaked his hamstring and that was why he didn’t play in the second half: “Christian did a sprint when he came back out for the second half and said that he felt his hamstring would not survive the game if he continued. So we had to make the decision to substitute him straight away,” Tuchel said.
Chelsea and USMNT fans will be happy Pulisic’s latest setback isn’t a lengthy one, but it is yet another setback and injuries keep pilling up.
After his superb displays over the international break, and a goal early on for Chelsea against West Brom, this was the last thing Pulisic wanted as the Blues have a huge UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against Porto and FA Cup semifinal against Man City coming up, as well as the intense battle for the top four.
Tuchel reacts to ‘wake up call’ as 10-man Chelsea implode
Thomas Tuchel has lost his first game as Chelsea manager, and his 14-game unbeaten run in all competitions ended in truly dramatic fashion.
The early red card to Thiago Silva set the tone, but even before that Chelsea weren’t themselves.
Chelsea had conceded just twice in 14 games under Tuchel before letting in five against West Brom and with the top four battle so tight, the German coach hopes this is a wake up call for the rest of the season.
“If we look at this game in four weeks hopefully we call it a wake up call, because that would mean we really woke up,” Tuchel said.
Speaking to BT Sport after the game, Tuchel lambasted his team for silly errors from the start as Chelsea were sluggish and never had control of the game.
“After the red card we could not adapt to the situation,” Tuchel explained. “Even in the second half what could go wrong went wrong after the red card. Hopefully it is a big wake up call for all of us, myself included. We did big mistakes after the two yellow cards. Today was impossible for us to adapt to the situation.”
“It is not typical for us. Today we conceded two of them and changed completely the momentum. At half time we tried to calm them down and give them confidence, but every shot was a goal from them. We had big chances and hit the post. It clearly wasn’t our day today.”
