The Blues have wrapped up a deal for the 20-year-old American winger but immediately loaned him back to BVB until the end of the season
Chelsea have completed the £58 million signing of Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund but will immediately loan him back to the German club until the end of the season.
At just 20 years of age, the American ranks as a signing for the future and should spend his best years at Stamford Bridge, as he aims to reach new heights in his career.
The Premier League has always been an ambition of his and Chelsea’s aggressive approach to signing him now convinced him to make the move to west London.
Article continues below
Editors' Picks
Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over
The US Men’s National Team winger is quick and creative but will have to add a cutting edge to his game, having only scored three goals in 20 games for club and country this season.
Pulisic, though, is also intelligent at pressing the opposition and that’s something that Blues boss Maurizio Sarri will appreciate due to his team’s style of defending.
Chelsea’s decision to bring in a winger is also unsurprising, given Eden Hazard, Willian and Pedro all have contracts expiring in June 2020.
Furthermore, Callum Hudson-Odoi is in talks over a move to Bayern Munich after growing disappointed with a lack of game time this season.
Pulisic hasn’t been signed to replace anyone in particular but it’s clear that Chelsea could lose any or all of their wingers this summer, including star man Hazard, who has repeatedly flirted with the idea of moving to Real Madrid at the end of the season.
Still, Chelsea are hoping that Pulisic will be lining up alongside Hazard in 2018-19, with the Blues willing to make the Belgium international their highest-paid player on £300,000-a-week in order to fend off interest from the Santiago Bernabeu.
They also hope to keep Hudson-Odoi but they have faced difficulties convincing him that he will be given enough opportunities to help him realise his full potential at the Bridge.
As for Pulisic, he will be hoping to get more starts at Chelsea than he has this season at Dortmund, where the emergence of Jadon Sancho has seen him drop down the pecking order.
Sarri will likely stick with a 4-3-3 formation next season as it is the only system used by the Blues head coach, who believes that tactical consistency is the best way to achieve good results.
Pulisic would, thus, likely line up on the right-hand side of front three, with Pedro on the opposite flank and Hazard continuing in his new ‘false nine’ position through the middle.
Of course, Chelsea could also play with a more conventional centre-forward, such as Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud, but, for now, Sarri views Hazard as the better option up front.
Elsewhere, the Blues will also be hoping to persuade Real Madrid to let them hold on to Mateo Kovacic, who joined on loan from the Blancos last summer, but the worry there is that the European champions will attempt to make the Croatia midfielder a part of a deal for Hazard.
Meanwhile, there are also doubts over David Luiz’s future at the club but the one thing we can say with certainty is that Pulisic is now destined to become a major player at Chelsea.