Liverpool’s reputation as the club with the most meticulous recruitment process has taken a few kicks in recent times. From a position of only signing players they were confident would add to the squad, the Reds have had to bring in Ozan Kabak and Arthur Melo on emergency loans in the last two years.
The former made 13 appearances but did not perform well enough to convince Liverpool to make his temporary move a permanent one. The latter has only featured in one game to date, thanks to injury, and that was a heavy loss to Napoli. Despite this lack of success, rumours suggest the Reds may dip into the loan market once again.
90min have reported that Liverpool are interested in a temporary deal for Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic. While it seems unlikely the Blues would loan a player to a rival in the battle for Champions League qualification, Jurgen Klopp has a previous relationship with the American, which was not the case with Kabak and Melo.
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"If Christian would at one point join us, I don’t know,” Klopp said in 2018. "But I like him and it’s not like that could be the problem. We respect contracts still and there is no market that I know about in the moment.”
The pair were together at Borussia Dortmund, albeit Pulisic was too young at that time to feature for the first team. He trained with them, though, and mentioned his gratitude to the manager when speaking to the 13&Me podcast. “I was just so excited and I’m just thankful to Jurgen Klopp that he gave me that opportunity. I’ll take that with me forever and I’m really grateful,” Pulisic said.
He’s in a strange position, where his stock with club and country could barely be more different. Pulisic either scored or assisted all three goals that the USA notched at the 2022 World Cup. However, he has only been in the XI for two of Chelsea’s eight Premier League matches since Graham Potter took charge, despite being in the squad for every fixture. Even then, he played an unfamiliar wing-back role in one of the starts, a 4-1 loss at Brighton.
While that was stretching his versatility too far, Pulisic would prove useful for a team looking for cover across their front line. His record contains an interesting quirk, too. Per Transfermarkt, the American has 22 goals and 12 assists when playing on the left wing, with figures of 11 and 25 respectively on the right despite making 27 more appearances. With the Reds needing cover for Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota, if they were to sign Pulisic he'd be in his most productive position.
And the Reds have already seen how effective he can be on the left. On the night they collected the league trophy for the first time in 30 years, Liverpool beat Chelsea 5-3. Despite only featuring for the final half an hour, Pulisic assisted Tammy Abraham – successfully completing three take-ons in the process – before scoring himself.
While never a truly prolific goal getter (the nine he recorded in 2019/20 is his best league haul to date), it’s easy to see why he carries a threat as he has a knack for finding good shooting positions. Pulisic is regularly among the top wingers and attacking midfielders in Europe’s big five league for average shot distance ( per FBRef ).
There was evidence of this in Qatar, when he pounced in the six-yard box to score the only goal in USA’s win against Iran. Pulisic’s movement in the box enables him to have higher quality chances than many of his positional peers and it’s fair to wonder if he could score a serious total of goals given more playing time.
He has only played around 45 per cent of the possible Premier League minutes since his move to Chelsea, after all. Some of that will be managerial choice, but Pulisic’s injury history would be a concern if looking to sign him permanently. Per Transfermarkt, fitness issues have meant he has missed between 14 and 16 matches in each of the last three seasons.
But he may be worth the risk on a short-term deal. Klopp certainly knows what he’ll be getting should the loan move happen, and would put Pulisic where he has been most deadly across his career.
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