Another victory for Chelsea, another league goal for Christian Pulisic.
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Red-hot Chelsea - now third in the Premier League table - edged winless Watford 2-1 at Vicarage Road, and Captain America picked off right where he left off: scoring the decisive goals for Frank Lampard’s side, who has in-form players to spare.
But even four goals - all which have come in the last two league games - and two assists later, the 21-year-old American is far from being the player who is going to rest on his laurels, and justifiably so. To the BBC:
“I want to make an impact for the team and I am enjoying it a lot,” Pulisic said following the Blues’ eighth consecutive league victory. “I feel confident but the hard work does not stop now for me.”
“It is so much fun to play with these guys up front who help me so much,” he added.
From start to finish, Chelsea, fresh off a cup loss against Manchester United midweek, controlled the tempo on Saturday against Watford, who are far from forming an identity in Quique Sanchez Flores’ second spell at the club.
Still, as the game began to come to an end, the Hornets desire to finish strong in front of the home crowd, coupled with some complacency from Chelsea, caused for a close-call ending.
“We played really well, our midfield was outstanding, but we just cannot have that sloppy bit near the end,” Lampard admitted following his team’s win. “It was a terrible 10 minutes considering how the game had gone. We need to be more clinical, we got a bit sloppy.
“We rely on our goalkeeper for those moments at the end of the game and he did what we needed him to do,” he added. “I am happy with how the players are playing. It’s great to watch.”
It was during those final ten minutes that Watford’s Gerard Deulofeu converted from the spot, following what Pulisic calls a “soft penalty” call.
“Those last five or 10 minutes felt like a really long time,” Pulisic said. “In the second half we felt like we were dominating. We needed to get a third to put the game away but then we gave away a soft penalty in my opinion.”
Coming off in the 83rd minute for Callum Hudson-Odoi, Pulisic shot on target in three different occasions. Out of the bunch, however, only a lightly tap-in inside a few yards from the white line proved to be enough to go past Ben Forster and into the back of the net. That needs to change, according to the crafty winger.
“We had opportunities to put the game away but we gave a penalty and they made it close at the end,” he added. “The penalty seemed to come from nowhere and that’s why we needed to score more goals.”
With this latest sample size, though, there are plenty of context clues to guess where Chelsea’s goals are going to be coming from in the games to come.
At this point, if your guess is Captain America, you’re probably playing it safe.