wolf stansson

Lampard's strategy of not even attempting to play the ball, bunker, and then wait for City's back line to make a single, amateur-level mistake so that Pulisic could convert a difficult chance is going flawlessly. Genius tactics.

Mason Mount is a few degrees away from being really good, but man he gets a lot of run from Lampard for as many mental mistakes as he makes.

As far as I’m concerned, every elite American should play for Dortmund from here on out. Dortmerica > Fulhamerica.

Chelsea played right into Bayern's strengths, too. They are so good, fast, and organized on the break and Lampard asking his back 4 to keep a high line against Bayern's wings while Chelsea's midfield gave it away so easily all day was a recipe for getting run out the gym.

I miss Christian Pulisic.

They're 'avin a laugh mate. Brilliant stuff. Cheers.

The heat on that story is all coming out of England. American journos have since done a modicum of due diligence and pointed out he isn't eligible for UK citizenship even though he was born there. He is only eligible to rep the US and Portugal and has no desire to rep anyone other than the US.

Lmao England is trying to poach Gio Reyna. He was born in England when Claudio played for Sunderland. BOTH his parents repped the US at the senior level. There's no way he switches. Right?

Yowza

V dirty from the prince who was promised

Haaland is ridiculously efficient. He could be a better Lewandowski. Interesting thing about Reyna is that he's actually really physical and more of an athlete than Claudio. He should get called up to the national team this summer.

Gio Reyna debuted for Dortmund last weekend. That's tight.

Willian has been awesome. Pulisic is dealing with minor injuries, but I think the biggest issue was the workload. He was starting every match in every competition and the absurd English holiday fixture crunch had me worried he was going to gas. He's still been effective when playing, but the finishing hasn't been as sharp and the burst into space a tick slower than at his best. Have to remember he's young, small, and this is his first year in the EPL. He needs some load management now and then.

Finally!

https://statsbomb.com/2019/12/christian-pulisic-is-on-his-way-to-becoming-a-superstar/

Pulisic running at defenders with the ball at his feet is absolutely devastating. He’s a horsefeathering killer.

This could truly be one of the worst unforced errors in the history of sports business. They make it to the mountain top of super clubs after decades of being second class and then they hire someone who is the antithesis of their culture and business model. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, just playing devil's advocate here... What should they have done with Poch? Last 24 league games (12 this year and 12 last) and they have 25 points. So for almost 2/3 of a season, they played like a relegation team. And they couldn't score while playing a chunk of their normal team against a 4th division side. I know they had the UCL run and that was amazing, but that can't be the only thing you're judged on as a manager. This wasn't some string of unlucky results in the league either where Spurs dominated but couldn't win. They got outplayed by teams like Sheffield and Brighton. They need an 86th minute goal just to tie Watford. In 5 of 12 games they held a lead and didn't win. They also blew two leads in the UCL. I'm not saying Poch was the whole problem or even the main problem. But he's certainly not blameless. He can't be. How long do you let it go on before you make a change? I really don't know what the right answer is here. This is strictly regarding the Poch firing, not the Mourinho hiring. I won't even try to defend that because you're spot on with that part. I was speaking specifically to Mourinho, so you're definitely not disagreeing with me. I don't follow Spurs enough to know how dysfunctional the relationship with Poch & the club was, so I don't actually have much of an opinion. With the Bayern job out there, I think the timing makes sense for both parties to go their separate ways.

This could truly be one of the worst unforced errors in the history of sports business. They make it to the mountain top of super clubs after decades of being second class and then they hire someone who is the antithesis of their culture and business model.

At first I was speechless. Then I started thinking about how funny it will be if it works. It absolutely will not, but just imagine a world where Mourinho is beating Pep & Klopp. A world in which Spurs are beating a Lampard-lead Chelsea. So good. Bring back the 4-2-3-1 and park the bus en route to a Spurs title.

Best player in the league over the last three PL match days?

Jordan Morris becoming a dominant winger is such an upset. Usually the strong and fast American just stays Gyasi Zardes for their entire career but J MO has developed a left foot, much better technical ability, and most impressively, defensive positional awareness. He played more centrally in the midfield block to hold their high line that basically broke LAFC. That's not something I would've predicted for him even two years ago. He covers very effectively when Brad Smith overlaps. Gives them so much more tactical flexibility than they've ever had in the Schmetzer era. They were always sound in the midfield because of Ozzie Alonso's individual brilliance, but now they're much more organized and versatile. They're going to beat Toronto and unlike the last two matchup's in the final, I don't think it'll be a boring, grinding game.

Sounders in the final. Again. Obviously I'm happy, but it's probably getting a little tired for most fans. Hopefully Toronto loses so we don't have to see that a third time.

I don't know. He's looked young & discombobulated with the US, but we all know that everyone except Jordan Morris has looked like that under Berhalter. Pulisic got benched and then came out and did what he did for Chelsea, so that's a tough way to evaluate Dest. I do know that he's a regular at age 18 on a team that was a Champions League semifinalist and domestic champion last season, so it would stand to reason that his expected level is as a Champions League knock out-level starter.

Holy mother horsefeathering horsefeathers that is some incredibly unexpected news. WOW. Hell yeah, Serge. The tabloids need to re-publish all the suspect Barcelona rumors that came out a few weeks ago now that they can get all the american clicks.

It’s easy to assign some benevolent strategy behind the reasoning Lampard provided: CP’s summer work load, gradual adjustment, managing expectations, but you’re right that CP is their best winger and potentially best attacker, so he probably mostly just mishandled it. I’m just glad that I timed my public reaction against the Pulisic hysteria so well. A hat trick immediately after? I’ve never felt more vindicated about a sports opinion lol. Not that I was alone, but most of the rhetoric was just recycled EPL cliche criticism of foreign players with big transfer tags that gets trotted out every single time a foreign player doesn’t immediately produce. The latent American resentment factor made it a little different/worse. Ironically, they did the same to 22 year old Hazard his first season, and then immediately tagged Christian as a failure because he didn’t come off the plane producing like 27 year old Hazard. It rarely happens to English players with huge price tags (unless they’re black) so it was just incredible to see so many Americans get caught up in that English media garbage.