The team:
- Hired Lampard after he has one year of managerial experience (and, to be fair, led Derby County to the EFL playoff final)
- Bought Kovacic from Real (40M)
- Sold Hazard to Real (90M)
- Lost the confidence of David Luiz, who requested a trade seemingly soon after working with Lampard, and was sold to Arsenal for a bag of balls (okay, 8M)
- Continued to build the loan army. Notables include Alvaro Morata (to Atleti), Danny Drinkwater (Burnley), and Victor Moses (Fenerbahce).
Disastrous start to the EPL season with United whipping them 4-0 in Manchester. Just now lost to Liverpool in the UEFA Super Cup in Istanbul, in penalties, on a final PK where Adrian was probably fully off the line at the moment of kick.
Pulisic:
- played the last 32' of the EPL opener at MU, and looked like he was overwhelmed by the speed and precision of the game at this level. Literally knocked around by Pogba, figuratively knocked around by Harry Maguire.
- played the first 74' of the Super Cup vs Liverpool, replaced by academy product Mason Mount (who just signed until 2024). Didn't look quite as bad as Saturday, even against better competition, and delivered an assist. Would have scored himself but for a very tight offside call.
Nowhere to go but up from here. I'm following them this year because (1) Pulisic, and (2) most of the players I found hardest to root for (e.g. John Terry) are now gone, so I'll give it a try. And you can laugh at the Pulisic FC jokes and excessive hype, but the fact is that it's going to put a lot of incremental eyeballs on the EPL and Chelsea this year, even if he's nowhere near the importance or level of the player he's replacing.
- Hired Lampard after he has one year of managerial experience (and, to be fair, led Derby County to the EFL playoff final)
- Bought Kovacic from Real (40M)
- Sold Hazard to Real (90M)
- Lost the confidence of David Luiz, who requested a trade seemingly soon after working with Lampard, and was sold to Arsenal for a bag of balls (okay, 8M)
- Continued to build the loan army. Notables include Alvaro Morata (to Atleti), Danny Drinkwater (Burnley), and Victor Moses (Fenerbahce).
Disastrous start to the EPL season with United whipping them 4-0 in Manchester. Just now lost to Liverpool in the UEFA Super Cup in Istanbul, in penalties, on a final PK where Adrian was probably fully off the line at the moment of kick.
Pulisic:
- played the last 32' of the EPL opener at MU, and looked like he was overwhelmed by the speed and precision of the game at this level. Literally knocked around by Pogba, figuratively knocked around by Harry Maguire.
- played the first 74' of the Super Cup vs Liverpool, replaced by academy product Mason Mount (who just signed until 2024). Didn't look quite as bad as Saturday, even against better competition, and delivered an assist. Would have scored himself but for a very tight offside call.
Nowhere to go but up from here. I'm following them this year because (1) Pulisic, and (2) most of the players I found hardest to root for (e.g. John Terry) are now gone, so I'll give it a try. And you can laugh at the Pulisic FC jokes and excessive hype, but the fact is that it's going to put a lot of incremental eyeballs on the EPL and Chelsea this year, even if he's nowhere near the importance or level of the player he's replacing.